


On Progressing from A past B to C

by AnnaBolena



Series: A Series of Progressions [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Multi, all of the amis are in this but I don't want to tag all of them, and you can tell by random medical facts, be warned, enjoltaire & courferre are pre-relationship throughout this, getting together fic, i should have studied while writing parts of this, just yeeted in there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-16 23:36:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16963626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaBolena/pseuds/AnnaBolena
Summary: “In that case you must call me Joly,” he says.“I think you’re all kinds of beautiful,” Bossuet grins, “Are you particularly fond of that adjective or are any such descriptives fair game?”“That was a pun,” Joly’s eyes twinkle with mischief when he realizes.a.k.a. The Joly-Bossuet-Musichetta Companion in this Series





	On Progressing from A past B to C

**Author's Note:**

> Listen...I know Feuilly is an Orphan...but Feuilly has a sister in this even if they don't have parents anymore, okay? Okay.  
> Also: this got a little out of hand. What was supposed to be like a sweet little prequel to the Enjoltaire/Courferre pieces I wrote in this universe turned into...this. Because I have no self-control when inspiration hits. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Upon considering his first impression, Bossuet has to admit that he really likes this dorm room they’ve assigned him to. It’s just a general overview he gets right now, but the kitchen seems passably clean despite the small size of his new lodgings, the windows open to show a picturesque Parisian scene of two faculty buildings with an impressively kept garden in front, and the two beds across the room from each other look sturdy, but not entirely immobile. Most importantly though, among all the pleasant surprises of the day he finds that his new roommate looks as cute as a button and Bossuet may be staring a little.

(Roommate is short, has black hair that sort of falls into an uneven fringe and dark eyes that somehow look brighter than anything else. Roommate has a careful but kind smile. Roommate is rocking back and forth on his heels ever so slightly, betraying nervousness, and it should really not be _that_ adorable.)

His mother and _new-ish_ step-dad dropped him off in front of the building, and he fought his way up the stairs with his luggage valiantly, returning to a different dorm room for his third year of university. (Can he still consider the step-dad new if he’s been seeing his mom for over six years now? When does something stop being new? He thinks either once you start accepting it or until it is replaced with something else, and he isn’t really partial to either option. It's conflicting.)

“Hey,” he smiles, struggling to put the box in his arms on the counter without breaking the contents in his excitement to be introduced to this man.

His roommate smiles at him brightly – his eyes crinkle adorably on his young face – then extends a hand and says: “I’m gay.”

Bossuet blinks a few times, and it takes about as long for him to recover from such bluntness as it does for the guy to realize what he said. The fact that he goes as white as a sheet leads Bossuet to think that perhaps he hadn’t meant to blurt it out.

Well, the least Bossuet can do is not give him a hard time about it, so obviously nervous.

“And I thought Archibald was a bizarre name,” he grins, taking the hand offered, “That’s me, but my friends call me Bossuet on account of well...” The gesture to his bald head makes his roommate nod and return to a somewhat more relieved face. “It’s a long story.”

“In that case you must call me Joly,” he says.

“I think you’re all kinds of beautiful,” Bossuet grins, “Are you particularly fond of that adjective or are any such descriptives fair game?”

“That was a pun,” Joly’s eyes twinkle with mischief when he realizes.

“Indeed it was.” Bossuet is fairly certain that they’re going to get on like a house on fire. If, he considers, he doesn’t manage to accidentally set an actual fire in here. It has been known to happen, to the despair of private school chemistry teachers that had the misfortune of knowing him.

He calls his mother that night, when Joly is in the shower – the sanitary part of the accommodation is not exactly up to snuff, but Joly assured him, while seeming to seek to reassure himself as well, that by way of regular cleaning schedules they should have no problem – and tells her dreamily: “I think I just met my soulmate.”

“That’s great, champ, how’d you meet _her_?” His step-father says, apparently listening in on the call. Right, he thinks. Richard is a great guy, most of the time. He’s the reason Bossuet can even pursue the avenue of higher education, and most of the time he is grateful that when his mother fell in love with a guy over twenty years older than her, at least she fell in love with money too.

(“As for any possible predilections, champ,” Richard had said, one afternoon out on the porch at his summer estate, years ago, when Bossuet’s eyes had lingered tellingly on the same-aged son of one of Richard's golfing buddies , “It might be best if you stick to the more traditional side of things, since you’re open to that. Just makes it easier, doesn’t it? Why explore anything else if you know you like girls?” That had been the end of Bossuet’s attempts at discovering his sexuality, and the start of his growing reputation as a gentleman.)

+

Bossuet has always considered himself to be a welcoming person – and though not blessed with amazing luck, somewhat more blessed when it comes to social intelligence. Joly might have laughed gratefully when he didn’t flip out at the prospect of rooming with a gay man, but Bossuet gets the notion that he isn’t entirely comfortable with everything either.

He wants Joly to be comfortable with him.

Joly is the most amazing person he has met in a long time.

So, Bossuet spends a long time traversing the Parisian knick-knack stores until he finally locates the sought after paraphernalia.

It opens up another array of questions. Bossuet was with a pansexual girl for a while during his first year of university, and she’d also talked about herself as gay on occasion. He’s come to understand it as a preferable umbrella term to queer for some. Perhaps Joly feels the same? Joly hasn’t cleared up if he is exclusively attracted to men, or if he perhaps only experiences romantic attraction or only physical or anything to help make the choosing of it all easier.

In the end he decides that the rainbow flag can’t exactly be wrong.

(Bossuet spends a long time staring at the bisexual pride flag pin, narrowing his eyes at the colors and finally deciding against putting it with the rainbow one. Richard has made his stance on the matter clear – and Richard holds his future in his hands. He’s unlucky, but he’s not foolhardy enough to needlessly provoke bad turns additionally to those nature already throws his way.)

+

“Jolllly, my friend,” Bossuet calls out cheerfully as he turns the lock in his key, torturing his voice and those who must hear him draw the name out in an unbearably musical fashion, “I have something for you.”

“Is it coffee?” Joly swivels around in his chair excitedly with a ruler clamped between his teeth that he swiftly removes, then his face dampens, “Never mind, I’ve already exceeded my limit for today and you aren’t carrying anything. Is this surprise metaphysical?”

“Do you want to guess?” Bossuet puts his hands on his hips.

“Can I?”

“Be my guest.”

Joly narrows his eyes at him, his nose twitches. “You’ve won the lottery.”

“Though you have known me only four days, you should already know how terrible my luck is.”

“Do I get another try?”

“You might even get three! I hear that is an appropriate amount of guesses.”

“Is it a good surprise or a bad surprise?”

“Good, I hope.”

“Material or immaterial?”

“Both.”

Joly considers this a moment longer, then points at the potted plant he brought with him to make up for the oxygen the two of them consume – they christened it _Argan_ in honor of Joly’s self-confessed tendency to assume a cold to be much worse than it ever is. “I’m _stumped_ ,” he says.

“Then _leaf_ it be and let me tell you,” Bossuet grins, coming to sit on his chair and wheeling towards Joly. “Do you remember what the first words you said to me were?”

“Unfortunately,” nods Joly, smiling with a bit more hesitation now.

“Right,” says Bossuet, digging into his pocket, “Well I’m not sure I made you feel as safe and welcome as I could have, so – _ah shit-fucking fuck_!”

He pulls the hand back out of his pocket and stuffs it into his mouth, tasting a bit of blood. His other hand wrangles out the flag pin and reveals it to Joly, who seems more preoccupied with Bossuet’s injury. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, poked myself, happens all the time,” he says around his thumb, “Anyway, it’s mostly symbolic but it’s also a segue for me to say that I hope you don’t think you have to hide any parts of yourself from me, because I think you’re kind of wonderful and I look forward to getting to know all the parts of you. And, well, your sexuality might be a big part of who you are, so I want you to be comfortable living your truth around me as well.”

Joly gapes at him, then gapes at the pin for a good while longer, until he takes it and pins it onto his blue hoodie carefully – though not before cleaning Bossuet’s blood off of it with disinfectant wipes. “Thank you,” he nods finally. “I feel like perhaps I should clear a few things up. I do like girls, too, sometimes. It’s, uh, much rarer though.”

Bossuet nods along, “And so you feel like it’s just easier to use the word gay than explain things further and risk facing LGBT+ internal discrimination?”

Far be it for him to assume what Joly feels, but that line of reasoning seems somewhat familiar.

“Uh, yeah,” Joly says, nodding emphatically, “Is that what you…?”

“No, I’m straight,” Bossuet says and ignores the bitter feeling in his chest that always comes up right around this time, “Dated a pan girl once though. She talked me through loads of this stuff. Mostly, you know, insecurities about somehow being thrown out of the community for not visibly being non-hetero, as if anyone should get to dictate what constitutes sufficient gay-ness, that stuff…”

Joly smiles, Bossuet smiles in return, and the friendship settles easily after that.

+

Living with Joly, Bossuet comes to realize in the first weeks of the new semester, is both a dream and a nightmare.

It’s a dream because Joly is a wonderful guy, and his mother – who works at the Vietnamese embassy in Paris – sends him care packages just about twice a week that they open together. (Apparently Joly lived at home for his first year of med school, but decided to stick closer to Campus for his second time around the academic-year-carousel.)

And it is a nightmare because every single one of those packages contains cleaning agents of some sort, and while Bossuet will never shy away from housework, he does gripe with the cleaning schedule a little bit.

His and Joly’s definitions of what is clean differ, slightly.

(He will admit, with some chagrin, that originally, he had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes, until he realized what runs beneath the surface of the need for cleanliness, namely a deep-seated fear of contamination and subsequent death-by-illness.)

But all things considered, Joly is grand.

(After their first complete week of living together, Joly comes home with a white board, and for a good ten seconds as he struggles to hang it across the back of their dorm door Bossuet dreads an updated cleaning regimen. Then Joly produces a sharpie out of his coat pocket and makes a pun scoreboard. “Whoever has made more by the end of the semester gets one wish.” And Bossuet thinks to himself that he’d happily spend the rest of his life excessively cleaning the kitchen sink if it means Joly will bless him with his ingenuity.)

Joly also studies a lot. More often than not Bossuet will find himself roped into the role of flashcard holder. He gets it, he supposes. Now that Joly has managed to be part of the fifteen percent that get to continue studying medicine in France he does need to grind his heels in and use masterful discipline to keep up the effort.

“Tell me what _Wolff-Parkinson-White-Syndrome_ is,” Bossuet prompts. Joly’s nose twitches in an attempt to keep his glasses in place as he flails about on his bed.

“A problem with the electrical system of the heart, wherein an accessory pathway between atrium and ventricle can cause a circular…”

“Tell me about the _Frank-Starling Mechanism_ ,” Bossuet prompts.

Another flail on the bed, but swiftly followed by the answer on the flashcard in front of him.

“Makes it possible for the heart to quickly adjust to variations in pre – or afterload, by either increasing the…”

Bossuet drifts off as he listens, mentally checking off all the points on the flashcard and staring at Joly, wondering how one brain has room for so many facts.

+

He meets Joly’s parents just about a month after the semester officially begins, when he comes home from getting groceries to find a pants-suit clad Asian woman with her hair up in the sleekest bun he has ever seen, sitting on Joly’s bed while various sounds are coming from the bathroom, as if someone might be tinkering with the shower head that dropped onto Bossuet’s head two days ago. (Joly had been adorably concerned with appropriate gravitas, even as Bossuet assured him repeatedly that such things just happened to him, yes, all the time, no, it didn’t hurt much after the initial impact and he didn’t think he needs to get it checked out, but if it would make Joly feel better, he would definitely consent to a trip to the doctor.)

Bossuet drops the sack of fruit he picked up from the market for Joly (who recently learned about scurvy and the disturbing prevalence of it in students even in modern times, and insisted they incorporate more fruit into their meal plans), and the sound of apples and various other seasonal produce hitting the linoleum floor is the score playing in time for their official introduction.

“Gracious,” the woman says, getting up to pick a few stray pieces before they roll beneath the beds. “You must be Archibald Lesgles,” she prompts, “I’m Ambassador Joly.”

“I am,” he nods when he finally has the produce problem back under control, “It’s an honor to meet you, Ambassador. Your son speaks very highly of you.”

Joly adores his mother. It isn’t a secret.

“And of you,” she smiles, “I hope he isn’t making you haul the groceries alone all the time. That hardly seems like an equal distribution of duties.”

“Well, he takes more to cleaning than I do,” Bossuet shrugs, almost upsetting the grocery bag again but stabilizing at the last second. “It works out quite well. Plus, he’s got so much more studying to do than I do, I’m in my third year already…”

He trails off when a man emerges from the bathroom and promptly introduces himself as Joly’s father – “Call me Claude,” he says when Bossuet originally means to say Dr. Joly. Joly’s father is a pediatrician, and he loves him very much as well.

(He’s heard the story of how Joly’s parents met, while his aunt was delivering her baby girl, Joly’s beloved cousin Nhung. Ambassador Joly was holding her hand as the doctor strode in. Legend has it that Claude stopped short like in a bad romance film and stared for a good few seconds before getting down to business and narrowly saving her sister’s life.)

Joly comes through the door, saying: “Hey Boss, did you know that if scurvy gets really bad, scars that have been healed for years can suddenly open up again because collagen production isn’t sufficient anymore since it’s reliant on Vitamin C? I really hope you bought fruit – good heavens, _people in my dorm_.”

“Hello, my joy,” his mother gives him a kiss on the forehead and he kisses her cheek in turn. “I have a day off – I thought you might want to get lunch, we can even review your flashcards together if you like.”

(Bossuet ends up tagging along, at Claude’s behest, and ends up having to explain why Joly calls him Boss. “It’s quite embarrassing, really, but when my mother remarried and I switched to a Private High School they quickly found out my mother is from Meaux, and my last name, obviously it sounds like eagle, so this one history-obsessed guy made the pun L’Aigle de Meaux, which sort of sounds like the eagle of words, because I was a very passionate member of debate club. And apparently there was a 17th century bishop that had the exact same nickname, and with the tonsures and everything... it stuck, more so when I went bald, and was eventually shortened to just Boss by your son’s creative genius.” It makes Claude laugh, at least, while it makes Joly nod approvingly.)

+

Sometimes, Bossuet can tempt Joly into taking an evening off of studying, in which case they mostly end up on the prowl in Parisian bars.

(It’s a rare thing. Joly has not made friends that ask him out to do stuff, or if he has, he has repeatedly declined their offers. It’s up to Bossuet to make sure the guy has at least something resembling a social life.)

This time, he drags Joly out with the help of Jean-Baptiste-Christophe, who mercifully introduces himself to Joly as Bahorel instead of that monstrosity of a name.

(He met Bahorel during his own orientation week, when he’d already been studying for half an eon. Bahorel approached him and asked him if he boxed, and when Bossuet had cited his bad luck as an excuse to avoid more broken bones than absolutely necessary, Bahorel had shrugged and asked him if he had better luck with the bottle and perhaps fancied getting wasted. It was a quick friendship of surprising fortitude.)

Joly foregoes introducing himself as _Quy Sang_ and promptly opts for the last name as well. It’s become sort of a habit. Bossuet only knows that name because it was the name the university emailed him when they assigned roommates, confusing first and last names as it sometimes happens when fusing French and Asian languages.

“You ever been to the Corinth?” Bahorel grins wickedly when Joly shakes his head apprehensively.

Joly meets Grantaire that night, and Bossuet is glad to have shown Joly the way to yet another  new friend.

(Personally he met Grantaire on his freshman pub crawl, when he'd run into Bahorel and him together, shit-faced, and ended up passing out on Grantaire's couch. They've become good friends in the years since.)

Grantaire maybe gets them a little bit too drunk, and Joly starts practically leaning on Bossuet after his second drink – “Is this okay, Boss?” he asks, eyelashes fluttering like a tired little butterfly, and Bossuet is stunned a little bit – until Bossuet decides to take action and just hauls him against his chest, to Bahorel’s immense delight.

(Later, when they’re stumbling into their dorm room, Joly manages to get out of his clothes and into a t-shirt fairly reliably, but then he seems to mistake their beds, because he crawls in with Bossuet and establishes himself firmly as the big spoon – “Is this okay, Boss?” he asks, lips warm and a little sticky against Bossuet’s neck, and Bossuet can only nod, settling into sleep as easily as breathing. In the morning he wakes up to the smell of coffee and Joly chewing on his thumb as he studies, one pencil pushed behind his ear and fuzzy yellow socks keeping out the cold he must feel in only boxer shorts and t-shirt. His head hurts a little, but the memory of Joly pressed against him is fixed and constant.)

+

Unsurprisingly, Joly gets a cold after spending the two days Bossuet was gone studying non-stop in his underwear and t-shirt. Bossuet returns from Richard’s place on Sunday evening, carrying half a truckload worth of goodies from his mother, to find Joly wrapped up in a blanket burrito in the corner of his bed, sniffling as he studies, and the bin next to the bed filled up almost entirely with crumpled tissues – “So bad for the environment,” Joly insists often, “But so necessary.”

“Hebbo,” Joly greets him with a voice that sounds thick, nasal and just wrong. “I thought bou we’e gone ‘til tomobbow.”

He blows his nose, loudly, as if to demonstrate the point Bossuet is about to make.

“I was going to, but your text indicated a strong call for a nursemaid, so here I am,” he says, holding up a bag with vegetables he intends to reduce to mostly-palatable soup. (If he doesn’t manage – well, he doubts Joly’s sense of taste is up to snuff right now, Bossuet has learned recently that it is mostly reliant on the nose anyway, and that cute little nose is heavily congested thus far.) “Is that my sweater?”

It _is_ his sweater, he realizes immediately afterwards, more than that: it’s his favorite dark-blue-and-yellow debate club hoodie that he loves for the fluffiness and sheer comfort. The sight of Joly wrapped up in it is something of a pleasant surprise in the way it warms his chest from the inside out. Like an internal heat pack. (Now there’s an idea that deserves funding, right? Grantaire would probably humor him and agree, and they’d be halfway through their hypothetical grant application already. On a good day, Joly would probably play along too, but in the throes of his ill he is often equally ill of mood.)

“Yes,” Joly admits sheepishly, ducking his head. “’s warm.”

“Who am I to stand between a man and his warmth?”

“To deny me would be quite _cold_ of you,” Joly smiles. Then he blows his nose again.

+

They’re out dancing together after Joly finds out he passed his first exam of the semester, and Joly keeps yelling into his ear to be heard over the volume: “I need you to promise me that you’re going to let me get back to studying once we get home.”

“No problem, _Jolllly_ dearest,” Bossuet grins, scouring the dance floor for an appropriate target. “What was it you needed to study again? Anatomy, right? How fitting.”

“I think I can see what you’re on about, but that’s not going to work as well as you imagine,” Joly laughs.

“It isn’t?”

“People always say studying anatomy on your bedmate is sexy, but imagine this, okay, ready?” Joly clears his throat, focuses Bossuet with an intensely clinical gaze, and grabs at Bossuet’s arm. He really didn’t need to hear the word sexy come out of Joly’s lips tonight. “Your _brachial plexus_ is a network of nerves formed by the _ventral rami_ of the lower cervical nerves and first thoracic nerves. It descends from the spinal cord through the _cervicoaxillary canal_ , over the neck, and into the armpit. We divide the roots into the trunks into which they merge – superior, middle, inferior.” Joly interrupts to press the approximate locations into his skin and Bossuet just stares at those eyes, so focused, so intent. “Each trunk splits in two and gives us six divisions in total, which then form into cords – lateral, posterior, medial – from which the final branches emerge.”

Bossuet looks at him, a little dazed, as Joly lists them in short order. _Musculocutaneous, Medianus, Ulnaris, Cutanaeus brachii medialis, Cutaneaus antebrachii medialis, Radialis, Axillaris._

Half of them don’t sound like actual words.

“Not very sexy at all, is it?”

“I don’t know, friend, I might have to readjust my pants.”

“Bahorel did tell you to get better ones.”

“I like these pants,” Bossuet protests, then continues: “And anyway, it would sound a whole lot sexier if you actually got into it instead of reciting it from the textbook that you’ve smuggled into your beautiful brain somehow. I’m willing to test that hypothesis on a vast study group until we find someone thoroughly appreciative.”

Joly looks away for a second, then makes an odd motion with his head that kind of looks like he is inviting someone over. Seconds later, someone hesitantly clears their throat behind Bossuet.

“Hey,” a pretty girl with long, flowing red hair and big brown eyes introduces herself. “I’m Ela.”

“Bossuet,” he introduces himself with a smile, “This is Joly. How can we help you tonight, Mademoiselle?”

“Um…” She bites the inside of her cheek, either shy or playing coy. “Here’s the thing. My boyfriend broke up with me like two months ago, and I wasn’t going to rush into anything because obviously I wasn’t ready for something new, right?”

Joly nods, as if that makes sense. Bossuet follows suit, intrigued. “Right. Good. So, my best friend made this list for me that she wants me to check off completely before I am cleared for serious relationships again, it’s kind of stupid but it’s been helpful, and there’s like three bullet points left on it.”

Ela takes a deep breath then continues everything else in a more rushed fashion: “And one of those points is dancing with two guys at once and you two look like you’re already friends so I thought I’d take a shot and ask. I’m sorry if this is too weird or something, but you already caught me looking, so…” She trails off, closing her eyes and grimacing.

“Joly is…” Bossuet trails off, fully aware that this isn’t his secret to tell even if Joly is technically out to most people.

(“Open to anything, yes, I suppose, but it’s quite rare for me to take an interest in girls, Boss.”) He’s already gestured towards his friend with his thumb though, so Joly takes it from there.

“I’m more into guys most of the time,” he explains with an absolutely adorable shrug, “But I’m also into dancing, so we can give it a whirl if you like.”

“Oh gosh,” Ela ducks her head, “You two are together?”

“No,” Joly assures her with a smile. “Bossuet is straight, single and ready to show you a good time on the dance floor, potential ER visit included.”

“I’m slightly clumsy, but I’ve had a corrective beer and that usually does the trick. Joly’s going to be a doctor, its fine, he usually sets the broken bones and whatnot,” Bossuet winks, extending his hand to Ela and leading her to the dance floor. It’s a small mercy that it is already packed so that they fall into a natural sort of sandwich configuration, because figuring that out on half-empty, dubiously stained floors just isn’t a pretty sight. This way, Ela wraps one arm around his neck, and pulls Joly up behind her, who places his hands on her hips, gripping like he actually knows what he is doing.

Ela, it turns out, is a pretty good dancer and she sets the rhythm well for both of them to follow. Through the thrum of the frantic energy everyone around them is sending out they get pressed closer together until Bossuet’s fingertips are touching Joly’s on her small waist. He glances upwards and catches Joly’s eyes, trained on him. One of Joly’s hands has wandered up her waist and Ela arches back into him. She pulls Bossuet closer with one hand on his shirt and reaches backwards to hook one arm around Joly’s neck, putting his lips to the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Bossuet wonders whether Joly is mapping out the muscles beneath the skin and the names of the blood vessels that accompany them, but Joly, because apparently he does this kind of thing more often than Bossuet, understands the invitation, because he begins kissing her neck. Ela’s eyes flutter close, the hand she’s got fisted in Bossuet’s shirt falters before it digs in deeper and all that Bossuet can think is: ‘Joly must be the best kisser in the world.’

He watches in fascination as Joly trails his lips upwards – Ela has a pretty neck, it’s graceful, he can appreciate qualities he himself lacks all the more – and tells Ela something, whispering it into her ear at a volume sufficient to be understood, because a slow smile starts spreading on her face and she opens her eyes to look at Bossuet and crook her finger at him. Joly raises his eyebrows at him expectantly, Ela bites her lip, and he thinks he understands. So, he goes in, and Ela opens her lips for him with a helpless little sigh he thinks he’ll not forget soon.

There’s only a faint trace of sprite on Ela’s tongue when it meets his, which makes him think this is definitely more than alright. Joly’s hands slide closer and he feels one on his hip, pressing him against Ela and making him both loathe and love his belt at the same time as it saves him from embarrassment. He opens his eyes to see Joly still alternately kissing and caressing Ela. Their kiss ends but Ela tilts her head at Joly questioningly, so he puts a hand on her neck and kisses her as well while Bossuet stares, mesmerized. They break apart, both of them smiling, and Joly nods. She reaches for Joly’s hand, and holds one out for Bossuet as well, who takes it even though he is more than a little confused at the sudden turn of events.

Joly finds them a rather secluded spot in the alley outside, and takes a deep breath.

“So making out with two guys in one night was another bullet point on the list, I take it?” He says, smiling that damning little smile of his that has Bossuet confused every single time. Ela nods, cheeks coloring. “You wouldn’t happen to be interested in crossing off the logical follow-up to that?”

Ela laughs, a high, trilling sound, and glances at Bossuet. “I mean, it’s no problem for me, it’s probably not a problem for Joly if he suggested it, but what do you say?”

“Yeah,” Bossuet has already decided before his brain catches up, “I guess I’m down. We don’t live too far from here, actually. You got anybody you need to text before we leave?”

“Should probably let my brother know,” Ela considers, “He was out with me tonight, but he met a friend of his and they were tearing up the dance floor last I saw. Good thinking. What’s your guys’ address, he’ll pick me up tomorrow?”

“She plans on sleeping over, Boss,” Joly shakes his head, exhaling deeply. “We had better do this right.”

+

So he wouldn’t mind touching Joly while this whole thing happens, but Joly is very careful in keeping what physical contact they have minimal. (He sees the reasoning - this is about Ela and helping her check off the bullet points on the list and what not.) It doesn’t take long for them to push the dorm beds together, they go quickly. And then he’s watching Joly take Ela’s face into his hands, gentle as anything, guiding her onto the bed and climbing on top of her.

Joly breaks the kiss to look at him, a little breathless, holding out a hand. Bossuet takes it and gets into bed with them, not certain why he feels loss at the break of contact with Joly’s hand but finding solace in Ela’s lips. Joly is working Ela’s zipper, dedicated in tracing every inch of her skin. At one point Bossuet swears he hears Joly whisper something into her skin that sounds suspiciously like _canalis inguinalis_ and it almost makes him crack up. Almost. But Ela’s fingers are tugging at his t-shirt and he draws back to lift it over his head. Between the three of them they get their clothes off pretty quickly.

(It isn’t even the first time he’s seen Joly’s penis, that is unavoidable when dealing with a shower as capricious as theirs, but it’s the first time he has seen it fully erect, sitting proudly orthogonal to his body, and he will admit that he looks for a tad longer than a mere glance. It’s very anatomically correct, he thinks, looks just like the prime examples in his textbooks, then thinks Joly would be pleased to hear it.)

“Condoms?” Ela gasps as Bossuet grazes her neck with his teeth.

Bossuet and Joly look at one another. Joly makes a helpless gesture with his hands. “I’ve just got lube.”

It is a testament to their good intentions, he supposes. Ela certainly seems reassured while looking helplessly amused at their antics.

“I probably have condoms,” Bossuet realizes after brief deliberation, “There was this guy handing them out at the fundraiser we went to during this year's orientation week – I took A Bunch.”

He gets up and hastens to his nightstand, squatting down to rifle through the drawers until he finds The Bunch with a triumphant sound. He tosses one to Joly, who catches it because he actually has very good hand-eye-coordination while turned on (you learn something new every day). Then he climbs back into bed.

“Let’s _wrap_ this up,” Joly grins, Bossuet mentally makes a note to add a tally next to Joly’s name on their pun leaderboard, busy opening the wrapper already, then glancing at Ela. “Which one of us do you want?”

He licks his lips for a second, then adds: “It’s completely fine if you want neither, by the way. I hope you know that you’re totally in a position where you can back out at any time and we’ll respect your decision without question.”

“How the fuck are guys like you even real?” Ela asks, looking between them. “I want him to fuck me while I blow you, Joly. Is that cool with you?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Joly says, lying back on his elbows and looking absolutely resplendent in the little light the moon offers. He’s holding up the unwrapped condom. “You wanna or should I?”

(Bossuet considers that Joly has had a lot more sex than he had initially supposed, given how comfortable the man is about it. What the heck happened to the blushing mess he met on his first day here?)

Ela takes the condom and puts it on, keeping intense eye-contact with him as she gives him a few experimental tugs. Joly’s lips part – barely – and he nods, eyes a little hooded. Ela looks at Bossuet from over her shoulder, red hair fanning across her back like a smooth, silky carpet he wants to rub his face in. (Not his weirdest impulse, but definitely up there.)

He clears his throat, rolls on a condom himself, and probes Ela with a finger first. There’s moisture there, plenty, but he asks anyway: “Do you want any lube? Not to toot my own horn here but I’m not exactly small…”

“Not to blow his own trumpet…” Joly supplies.

“Not to pluck my own guitar…?” Bossuet trails off, considers. Joly nods.

“Not to strum his own harp,” Joly points a finger at him. Ela bursts out laughing.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“In that case,” Bossuet nudges her legs a little further apart, looking for a good angle to slide in. And then he is suddenly enveloped in a tight sheath of pure heat that clings around him so well he can’t quite help the sound it tears from him. Ela, it seems, likes it too, as she moans around the head of Joly’s cock, in her mouth. How pleasant.

“Is that good?”

“Yes,” she pops off to say with a gasp. What can he say? - He works best with feedback loops. The vibrations of Ela’s mouth around Joly seem to be doing something to the man, because he gets _loud_. And the sounds he produces are wonderful, breathy and utterly intoxicating.

“Hold on, I’ve got an idea,” Joly interrupts Ela’s throat, hard at work. “You’re very good, darling, don’t look at me like that. I’m trying to prolong this and we can’t all have the capacity for consecutive orgasms.”

“Capacity…?” Ela trails off, confused, looking back at Bossuet.

“No, not me, he definitely means you, unless he’s been keeping secrets from me about my own body.”

“Sit upright, Boss,” Joly tells him, and he complies, familiar with the position. Ela moans as with the shifted angle she is pulled into his lap. “Alright?”

“More than alright,” Ela says, nodding. It looks a bit like a ragdoll when she does it, if Bossuet is being honest. Joly licks his lips, inches closer, and kisses her as his hands wander downward once more. He feels the warmth of Joly’s fingers near his cock as sort of a surprise and his hips stutter forward. But Joly is observing Ela as he rubs slow circles somewhere Bossuet can’t reach, and Ela collapses back into him, head thrown back against his shoulder as she becomes increasingly incoherent. He meets Joly’s eyes and suddenly can’t look away.

It feels obscene, to be fucking a girl while staring at a guy, it makes him almost feel a little awful, like he’s using her as a proxy, but Joly swallows, licks his lips and shifts forward a bit more until his free hand can caress the arm Bossuet has slung around Ela’s waist. It’s the barest hint of a touch, a soft caress in the middle of all the other frantic movement happening around it, but it moves him. Something lodges in his throat, a cry he can’t get out. Ela shudders, almost screams, and tightens around him like a noose as an orgasm hits her. It’s over in a few seconds and then she’s panting. Bossuet is starting to sweat as well from the strain.

“Fuck,” he groans, trying to think of something as Joly keeps up the effort with his fingers.

“Yeah, me too,” Joly grins at him emphatically, showing dimples, for fuck’s sake.

“How about number two for you, Mademoiselle?” Joly quirks an eyebrow at her and then it looks like he’s twisting something – nipple, probably – and Ela clenches around him again. This time he comes along with her. “Oh, fuck…” he draws the word out, pants it against Ela’s neck. His eyes meet Joly’s and it goes through him like a flash of fire.

Ela gets off of his dick, looks at Joly questioningly, who seems to read her desires like a particularly delightful novel. Bossuet is left in charge of disposing his condom quickly and quietly.

“Well, I mean if you wanted to,” Joly shrugs, “But I’m a very visual person, I could get off from this alone. Entirely up to you, darling.”

Ela climbs into his lap without hesitation and sinks down on him, loosened up and a little dazed. Bossuet spends about a good minute just thinking: that’s where _my_ dick just was, and then he catches those magnetic eyes again and hastens to join.

“Good things _come_ in threes, I’ve been told.”

He flashes Joly a smile, whose hips seem to try and buck Ela off, going by the way he is thrusting right now. Bossuet holds onto her and presses a hand down on Joly’s chest. One of Joly’s hands mindlessly clutches at his and it almost feels like an orgasm all in its own, living Joly’s ecstasy with him. His hands shake with the force of it, right there alongside those two.

(Ela gets to number three before they all fall asleep.)

+

In the morning, he wakes up with Ela half on top of him and Joly’s erection poking into his side. He nudges Joly, who blinks awake and starts looking for his glasses blindly.

“Good morning,” he croaks. Ela is starting to stir on his chest as well. The red strands are unbearably soft, but rubbing your face in it will result in a mouthful of hair, the evidence computes. Not as pleasant as hoped.

“ _Wood_ morning,” Bossuet nods at him. Joly laughs and gets up, searching for the whiteboard marker before adding two tallies next to Bossuet’s name.

“One for you as well, Joly,” Bossuet reminds him.

Ela furrows her brows. “What is that, an orgasm board?”

“Puns,” Joly corrects her with a gentle and mildly embarrassed smile.

+

Ela leaves and it isn’t awkward at all, except it really, really is because Bossuet can’t stop thinking about the way Joly looked in the throes of passion.

(It’s appreciating art, that’s what it is, he tells Grantaire when he pays him an afternoon visit at the Corinth. If anyone should appreciate his sudden turn towards aesthetics, it ought to be Grantaire.

“Or,” Grantaire says, “Hear me out here: you like him.”

“I’ve always been straight,” Bossuet shakes his head, not actually denying anything. Because he suspects Grantaire might have a point.  

“Straight up drowning in denial, maybe,” Grantaire tells him with a snort as he cleans glasses. “Trust me – I’m very familiar with the feeling. A connoisseur, of sorts.”)

+

Bossuet meets Jehan one afternoon at the Student Health Clinic, where he goes to get himself tested every three months, mostly out of habit. Bahorel came with him the first few times, but he has been unerringly monogamous for over two years now and has reduced his visits to bi-yearly ones.

(His mother never tried to stop him from bringing his sexual awakening into fruition, but she did relentlessly instill in him a desire to do it as safely as possible. “Getting tested isn’t shameful,” she would say, “What is, is being irresponsible towards yourself and future partners and possibly perpetuating something you could have easily treated if you’d known about it.”)

So, there he stands, when he notices a person with a long, red braid glaring angrily at one of the male nurses.

“There are no gender-neutral terms to refer to you, dude, let it go, I’m not playing the pronoun game with you if you've clearly got a penis,” the nurse is saying, sounding too smug to be feasible.

He’s had talks with Joly, about it not being enough to merely not discriminate. Standing by instead of standing up makes you at least a little complicit, they agreed, which is why Bossuet literally stands up from his waiting room chair and walks up to the counter.

“I don’t know about that, _buddy_ ,” he says, pointedly. “How about _comrade_? That’s nice and gender-neutral, but if that fails or doesn’t match up with your political conscience, have you perhaps asked for a name? I always find that a nice, appropriate thing to call someone.”

Red-Braid, who has little daisies woven into their hair – how cute – offers him a smile.

“It’s Jehan,” Red-Braid chirps happily, revealing a much more pleasant tone than the one used to address the unbearably smug asshole nurse, “They/them pronouns.”

“Sure,” Bossuet says, shaking their offered hand, “Bossuet, he/him works well for me.”

Asshole nurse looks unhappy to have not filled his quota of general asshole-ness today, but takes Jehan’s details down and tells them to take a seat and wait.

(Jehan asks him if he wants to get a coffee, after they’re both done, and Bossuet happily agrees. “I made a friend,” he later tells Joly, inordinately pleased with himself.)

+

Marius Pontmercy literally runs into him as he is leaving his lecture room, sending scalding hot coffee over his only clean shirt – Joly is in a study frenzy, laundry has recently been somewhat neglected – and causing a scene as Bossuet screams.

The guy looks much too sad and vaguely gothic, dressed up all in black, to fit in with law students, but he skips his lecture and takes Bossuet to the clinic, and Bossuet pulls a few strings and has Bahorel sneak into the mandatory lecture to sign for Marius so he doesn’t get a missed attendance.

Joly isn’t listed as his emergency contact, but he does arrive not ten minutes after Bossuet texts him about what happened and starts meticulously inspecting his chest to judge the severity of the burns. Marius feels awful, but Joly, too, cannot muster anger in the face of such earnest contrition and profuse apologies.

Later, once Bossuet’s chest has been suitably dressed and slathered in ointment, Marius asks if they can exchange numbers, since they’re both in law, and because he really wants to get Bossuet an apology coffee.

(‘Apology Coffee’ becomes a fortnightly thing, and sure, Bossuet likes Marius fine, and the guy is well-intentioned, but so naively misguided in some aspects that after a while he thinks he just definitely needs someone to tell him that things like trickle-down economics couldn’t ever possibly work the way they are described to. Bossuet isn’t overtly keen on being the one to do it. But, all things considered, Marius is doing quite well, considering he met his first openly-not-straight person only at the start of the semester. “He’s great, we’re good friends now, I’m just not always sure how to act around him. I don’t want him to misconstrue my intentions.” Marius says, at which Joly rolls his eyes and asks Marius if he worries about Joly misconstruing his intentions, coming out to him almost aggressively. Marius is suitably chastised, and admits that he doesn’t really worry about how women perceive his friendship, and so to assume it would be any different with his new male friend is a logical fallacy. He’s very capable of self-reflection.)

+

University housing shuts off heating for two days after some blond, holier-than-thou jerk on the top floor loudly complained about the safety hazard the current piping presents in the middle of a bitterly cold winter, and as they try to sleep that night, they mostly shiver their way through quietly until Bossuet rolls his eyes at the ceiling and gets up.

(Bahorel tells him his roommate is the cause of their cold-induced ilk, but that he truly means well – apparently the pipes in a different accommodation exploded and seriously injured two students while also shutting down the place for the foreseeable future without being able to offer the residents suitable alternatives.)

“Spoon me, Jolllly,” he cajoles, crouching next to his bed. Joly’s eyes open – there’s only a little light coming in from the streetlamps outside and it makes Joly look breathtaking – and he looks a little wary. “I mean,” Bossuet is quick to add, “If that is alright with you.”

“Yeah,” Joly says after he has cleared his throat, holding up the blanket for him to slip under. They interrupt their attempt at sleeping one more time to throw Bossuet’s blanket on top, and then they’re good to go.

He wakes up in a cocoon of heat with what could be called Joly spooning him, but is more appropriately described as languishing on top of him. Bossuet can’t entirely resist running his fingers up and down Joly’s back.

“You’re warm, Boss,” Joly says against his chest eventually, but it doesn’t sound like a complaint.

“Heating isn’t back on yet, so I think that’s something you could appreciate more.”

Joly laughs quietly into his chest.

“I do.”

(There are also jokes about how Bossuet should transplant his chest hair onto his head, but he takes them in stride, good-naturedly.)

+

He’s walking with Courfeyrac, a fellow law student that apparently takes some third year courses in his second year for the sheer heck of it and the most charming person on the planet, when someone calls his name. (Courfeyrac, incidentally, is the not-straight-friend Marius Pontmercy talks about all the time, which Bossuet discovers after Marius flags them down on the campus one day, cheeks reddened and rendered breathless by the cold and briskness of his walk towards them.)

“Oh, that’s my Ferre,” Courfeyrac says with a completely adoring smile when he spots the tallest dude Bossuet has seen in a long time giving a two-fingered wave. Joly almost disappears next to him, but Bossuet sees him all the same and cracks a smile as well.

“You’re looking much more awake than this morning,” Ferre says, his voice deep and calming in its cadence as he reaches for Courfeyrac to pull him close to his chest, inhaling deeply and pressing kisses to his curls.

“I thought you said you were single?” Bossuet furrows his brow when Courfeyrac leans into the forehead kisses a little too readily. Joly’s cheeks are red from embarrassment and that leaves Bossuet very, very curious. Joly doesn’t often get this flustered, not about PDA. Bossuet would think that Joly might actually appreciate this open show of same-sex affection. 

“I am,” Courfeyrac says, while holding hands – interlaced – and cuddling with _his Ferre_. Try as he might, Bossuet can’t be convinced of Courfeyrac’s supposed eligibility. Joly continues to look mortified, and when he sees Joly pointedly avoiding Combeferre’s gaze he gets a suspicion as to why that might be.

Combeferre, as he introduces himself, adjusts his glasses.

“We’ve known each other since before Kindergarten,” he explains seriously, “We aren’t together.”

And yeah, Bossuet doesn’t believe that for a second, even though Combeferre’s obvious show of affection doesn’t suggest a reason to hide a homosexual relationship, until Combeferre speaks again.

“Joly here pointed you out across the campus green because he said he liked your ass, Courf.”

There it is.

“You do?” Courfeyrac beams at Joly, earnestly, who clears his throat, and then braves the waters.

“Yes.”

“Do you want to go out sometime?”

Joly is surprised at the brazenness, but he nods and accepts with a stunned smile as Courfeyrac enters his number into his phone.

(The date, as Joly reports, goes incredibly well, except when they kiss it unfortunately feels weirder than anything else. “Incredible kisser, really,” Joly seems confused by it, “He’s got it down pat. But it just didn’t make either of us want more, so I think instead we’re just going to be good friends. He’s a great guy.”)

+

“I never think people are going to say yes when I ask them out,” Joly says into the dark one night, just after Bossuet closed his law texts and prepared for bed.

He’s still thrown by the Courfeyrac thing, Bossuet supposes.

“Why’s that?”

“I think – I think mostly because I can’t fathom why they’d find me attractive.”

“Why on _earth_ -?”

“You know,” Joly sighs, put upon, “I’m small, I’m not even very muscled, all things considered, and through years and years of media representation I’ve come to buy into the illusion that Asian men aren’t considered conventionally attractive by the broad population.”

“But that’s – well, you raise valid points and obviously I’m not saying your feelings are wrong or unfounded, these influences are real and damaging, but Joly, that’s bullshit. You’re incredibly sexy, it’s kind of mind-boggling.”

“You have to say that, you’re my best friend,” Joly yawns, “But go on, I’m enjoying this pep talk.”

“I don’t have to say anything, this is a free country. But you’re fucking gorgeous, with your dimples and your smile and the way your hair never seems to fall evenly. And yeah, you’re short and kind of skinny, but your legs are something else, man.”

“I feel like that warrants a _no homo_ at the end,” Joly jokes, weakly, after a few seconds of silence.

“Neither of us likes those kinds of jokes, don’t set us back to 2008, if anything I’m _pro homo_. If I want to rave about your thighs then I will, as long as it doesn’t make _you_ uncomfortable.”

“Now I’m interested, Boss, tell me more about this fascination that my thighs provide…”

+

Combeferre and Joly become the most enthusiastic study buddies Bossuet has ever seen in his life and Bossuet is subjected with alarming frequency to their sessions. 

(“Describe the _Haldane Effect_ for me, Combeferre,” Joly will prompt at any random moment, like when Combeferre is making tea for both of them – there is an abundance of tea during such sessions – or when they’re just walking across campus together. And Combeferre will say something like: “Deoxygenated Hemoglobin forms bonds with Protons more easily than oxygenated Hemoglobin because it’s a stronger base. It’s relevant for us because along with the _Hamburger Phenomenon_ -” here Bossuet will think they’ve stumbled across something interesting, then Combeferre keeps talking “-otherwise known as the Chloride shift, it leads to a steady gradient of carbon dioxide from the capillary blood to the erythrocytes. Really, Joly, this is basic stuff, I wanted you to challenge me.”

“Fine,” Joly will say, “Tell me about _Ondine’s Curse_.”

Once more Bossuet will be momentarily intrigued, until Combeferre starts talking and it turns out that _Ondine’s curse_ is: “Central hypoventilation Syndrome, a respiratory disorder that can cause respiratory arrest during sleep or in severe cases while awake. Either congenital, which is rare or acquired in later life due to trauma to the brain or brainstem.”

At that point Bossuet will usually tune out, but those two will keep going and going until they’ve reviewed half their textbook in one sitting. Or so it seems to Bossuet.)

Right now they’re sprawled on Joly’s bed while Bossuet is studying on his own bed, though memorizing law texts is not nearly as fun, and Courfeyrac is not nearly as willing a study buddy. He’s asked. (“I study best alone, I’m sorry. We can review together, once I’m actually done with my shit, but I hardly ever get around to actually reviewing instead of cramming. I always procrastinate just a tad too much.”)

Combeferre is a very tall man and his feet – bare, to Joly’s horror – are dangling just above the floor.

“Tell me the difference between obstructive and restrictive lung problems,” Combeferre says, in the middle of pushing a pen behind his ear when he realizes that there’s already a pen at rest there. Watching them sort through knowledge is far more entertaining than Bossuet has previously realized, now that he knows what to look for. They get so into it.

Joly makes that adorable pensive face for two whole seconds before it clears up confidently and he says: “ _RFEV1_ is reduced in obstructive problems whereas vital capacity remains normal, as opposed to reduced vital capacity and normal _RFEV1_ in restrictive problems.”

“And what examples can you give for either?”

“Obstructive examples are _cystic fibrosis, asthma, emphysema_ …” Joly licks his lips quickly, “Restrictive examples are paralysis due to _Guillaín-Barré-Syndrome_ or fractured ribs?”

“You forgot _anchylosis_ ,” says Combeferre, and Joly nods, as though those randomly arranged letters actually mean something to him. Bossuet resigns himself to going back to his own studies. He needs it more than those two.

+

It is a close thing, but Joly cinches the pun-championship title that after they declare round one over, once they’ve lived together a full semester.

“My wish is that we start looking for an apartment together, because I still have to spend ten minutes psyching myself up to take a shower in this bathroom every day.”

Bossuet laughs.

“I mean, obviously the rules of the contest can’t make my request for an apartment legally binding, so only if you’re up for it,” Joly shrugs, smiling at his feet.

They start looking for an apartment that night.

(“Joly sounds great, dear,” his mother tells him over the phone, “Quite a looker too.” The second part is added as a whisper when he sends her a heavily requested picture. Joly blushes furiously beside him.)

+

It’s shortly before their second semester starts that they’re going out for dinner, because their fridge might have had a little mishap that Bossuet will swear until his dying day wasn’t intentional, and the milk he keeps has gone bad.

(“My almond milk hasn’t gone bad,” Joly had smirked at him. “You’re really _milking_ that for all it is worth, aren’t you?” “Oh, most definite- _lait_.” “You’re _nuts_ , Jollly dear.”)

On said stroll, they’re interrupted by someone calling out to them. Sure enough, Ela is walking towards them with an equally red-haired man that looks a bit older than her in tow.

“Bossuet!” She calls out, “Joly!”

They stop and smile at her. They had, after all, a very nice night together.

“This is my brother _,_ _Bartłomiej_ _-_ _Gościsław_. These are the guys I told you about.”

“I mostly just go by Feuilly,” he shrugs, shaking their hands. “Beats teaching people how to work around that mouthful. In fact, I’m positive _Elżbieta_ _-_ _Jadwiga_ just introduced me that way because I keep telling her she must have imagined you two and she considers it a punishment.”

“Well, we can never be certain we actually are real,” Joly considers, thoughtfully. “You two look like you’re celebrating, though. Special occasion?”

“Ela got a job, she’s moving to Poland in a few days,” Feuilly says, ruffling his little sister’s hair affectionately while she rolls her eyes and swats her hand at him. “Going to live with the village elders and get stuffed full of _Pierogi_ until you can’t even walk anymore, isn’t that right?”

“For fuck’s sake, leave my hair alone you menace.”

(“I’m kind of sad, honestly,” Joly says over dinner afterwards, “She was cool. We could have picked her up again.”

“She’s very cool,” Bossuet finds himself nodding along. “Guess we’ll have to find another girl to bed.” He means it as a joke, but Joly actually looks in the midst of consideration. When Bossuet thinks about it, he supposes he could also very much live with that option being open in the future, though his reasons may be slightly different.)

They don’t see Ela again, but they do run into Feuilly when he is out with Bahorel, a month later. Apparently they are very close.

“These are the considerate threesome dudes my sister kept swooning over,” Feuilly says, without preamble. Bahorel laughs thunderously and reveals himself already acquainted with them.

“You guys are wild, honestly. Casual threesomes, who just stumbles into that?”

+

What he has with Joly is a deep bond of friendship that he is entirely comfortable in, until one day he isn’t. He’s got something in his eye which means he misses the sign on the door flipped to indicate shenanigans happening inside, and he’s stumbling to the sink by the time he places the noises coming from the bed.

The water starts running, sweet, sweet relief for his eye, and then the noises come to an awkward halt.

He blinks his eye back to health, thinking himself grateful for his regained vision and then immediately recanting because there’s Joly, fully naked, with some guy buried inside of him, both of them staring at him.

“The…” Joly says, uselessly flailing with his hand for the sign at the door, voice breathless and punched-out. The desire in his eyes is almost a tangible thing, lust seems to fill the room with a sort of haze. “I flipped it, didn’t I?”

Bossuet checks, already on his way out: “Yep, you did. My bad, had something in my eye. You know how it is with my clumsiness.” He gives a nervous laugh that both of them know is faked. “You two crazy kids have fun.”

Outside, with the door closed behind him, he realizes what an ass he just made of himself. But then the noises start up again and he legs it out of there.

He goes to the Corinth and decides that it says nothing about him that he’s there before four in the afternoon. Grantaire is in though, polishing glasses and giving him a friendly nod when he sees him. There’s a very exquisitely handsome man sipping what could be a cocktail but is more likely to be juice and syrup at this hour by the bar but other than that the location is almost empty – a few old men sit around a table in the back playing cards, and there’s what looks to be a couple having a dispute in the other corner.

“Alright there, Boss?” Grantaire wonders, when he takes a seat at the bar and orders a beer.

“Joly is having sex right now,” Bossuet blurts out even though it isn’t any of his business.

“You’re _straight_ though,” Grantaire leans across the bar, conspiratorially. He feels a little mocked, but Grantaire is justified in his mockery. He had spewed a load of crap the last few times he’d come complaining. “Why are you jealous?”

“You may have made a good point the last time.”

The last several times.

“Praise be,” Grantaire snorts, “He finally accepts it. _Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice, I offer in another’s enterprise_.”

“What _is_ your obsession with Shakespeare?” The guy on the other end of the bar, who has very obviously been listening in, wonders.

“My obsession as always, dearest Apollo, is to aspire to hold your attention with it and perhaps even impress you,” Grantaire’s voice sounds a little heavier despite the joking words.

The blond guy frowns at Grantaire, shaking his head. “You are ridiculous.”

“Me?! _O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die_ ,” Grantaire tosses the cleaning rag over one shoulder and pretends to swoon, before continuing: “What’s ridiculous, Apollo, is that you think there is wisdom yet to be found in the works of one Baron Montesquieu-”

“You were _just_ on the brink of agreeing me,” the guy exclaims, scowling, “Why are you now switching positions if not to just be purposefully contrary because you like antagonizing me? Without a doubt you are the most infuriating person I’ve ever had the displeasure of becoming acquainted with.”

“And yet, you are still here,” Grantaire hums and begins emptying the dishwasher. “Funny, that.”

“I’m here because I am trying to have a meaningful discussion,” the guy protests, and Bossuet wonders how Grantaire can miss the obvious pout on that face. (Not to mention the insane amount of sexual tension, but Grantaire has done him the courtesy of not pointing out just how ridiculously wrong he has been about his feelings in regard to Joly that he won’t make him any more uncomfortable than he clearly already is.)

“And I’m resistant to any type of meaning in my life,” Grantaire sighs, “Why don’t you ask Boss over there what he thinks of Fanon? From what I heard his grandfather actually fought in that war, but not on the side you might expect.”

“My _step-_ grandfather,” Bossuet clarifies quickly, when he feels the full weight of fiery blue eyes on him. It’s enough to make anyone uncomfortable. That is how he meets Enjolras.

+

He comes back home that night to Joly rocking back and forth on his heels nervously, hands unable to stay still.

“Hey,” he says, clearing his throat.

“Hello?” Bossuet wonders in return.

“Listen, if you’re uncomfortable with me…”

“No,” Bossuet interrupts, lunging forward to cover Joly’s mouth with his hand. “I love that you’re unapologetically you, Joly dear. You’re wonderful and I want you to have sex with any guy, gal or non-binary pal you choose. It just surprised me.”

Joly’s response is muffled against his hand, but he can still make out the ‘thanks’ and the bright smile.

“I also want you to have sex with any gal you choose,” Joly tells him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. And well, Bossuet thinks, no time like the present to breach the subject.

“Feel like sharing one again?”

+

They’re both slightly buzzed when it first happens, celebrating his mother being with Richard for seven years now with the bottle of brandy he sent over. They’ve also got candy from Joly’s mother.

Currently they’re under the covers together, the room only illuminated by the kitchen light – the lights for the beds went out – and the grocery list on the fridge already says lightbulbs, but at this hour the stores are all closed and anyway Bossuet doesn’t entirely trust himself not to smash them while he is this, ahem, _smashed._ Joly agrees, “In the interest of not slicing your hands open on glass shards. They’re very pretty hands. It would be a shame.”

He’s got Bossuet’s hands cradled in his, stroking his index finger over the palms and tracing lines he finds there. “They’re alright,” Bossuet concedes, “Not unpleasant to the eye, but someone once told me they look washed out, and that kind of stuck.”

“No,” Joly shakes his head, sternly, “They’re pretty. How cruel of someone to describe a natural color gradient as washed out. Can I fight them?”

“I don’t remember their name, that was way back in elementary school,” Bossuet dismisses, smiling at the sight of Joly so outraged on his behalf. He’s wonderful, Bossuet thinks, fully aware that he is staring. Joly is looking back at him, eyes slightly glazed over, and holding his breath.  

“Jolyboy, I’m going to need you to let me try something,” Bossuet clears his throat after he makes the request. Joly shrugs, smiling, “Yeah, okay.”

Bossuet leans forward and kisses him. It’s great. He was right. Joly is a fantastic kisser who doesn’t hesitate to reciprocate. Holy fuck.

“Yeah, R was right.” Is what Bossuet ends up blurting out when he draws away. His entire body feels like it is floating. Are they still in a bed or have they somehow reached the clouds?

“It’s been known to happen. What was he right about?”

“I am _not_ straight.”

 Joly beams at him. “No?”

“Nope…” Bossuet shakes his head, a grin of his own beginning to form on his lips. “Do you maybe want to give kissing me another try?”

He gets another kiss and an emphatic nod for that.

+

Joly’s still in his arms when Bossuet wakes up some hours later, snoring softly from a cold he hasn’t entirely cured yet – no matter how much ginger tea he imbibed in recent days – and disturbing his fringe whenever he exhales. Bossuet watches longer than perhaps considered appropriate.

They kissed last night, he remembers.

“Jolllly, wake up,” Bossuet whispers, shifting slightly. Joly doesn’t open his eyes.

“Am I going to wake up to find out you’re regretting what happened?”

“I regret that we weren’t sober for it, but I think if you want to, we can definitely also start kissing as two sober men.”

Now Joly cracks one eye open, cautiously.

“Is that what you want?”

“Ideally it is what we both want, but yeah, this is me asking you to be my boyfriend.”

Joly hums, considering.

“Datemate,” he suggests with a smile he tries to hide in Bossuet’s chest.

“Partner,” Bossuet throws in, feeling somewhat lighter already.

“Significant other.”

“Light of my life?”

“Courfeyrac calls Combeferre that,” Joly shakes his head, “Let’s not intrude on their territory.”

“If we can’t use any of the endearments those two use we’ll be lucky if we can still call each other by our names,” Bossuet snorts.

“They’ll get there eventually, that isn’t even worth gambling on.”

+

“Archibald,” Claude greets him with cheek kisses after he opens the door to them, “Good of you to join us.”

Joly’s parents live quite lavishly, and Bossuet remembers a talk with him about why he chose to move out for university, precisely because the status-symbol nature of their lifestyle makes him mostly uncomfortable.

(“We’re definitely more fortunate than many others, and it makes me feel guilty most of the time, if I’m honest.” “Yeah, same with all of Richard’s money,” Bossuet had nodded along, “Mom and I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment, and now it all just feels like showing off.”)

“Ambassador,” he greets Joly’s mother, who offers him a very warm smile in return, before they sit down for dinner.

“This is great,” Bossuet says, after Claude tops up his wine glass, “It’s bánh cuốn, right?”

“Excellent pronunciation,” Ambassador Joly says, approvingly, “And a compliment I gladly accept. It isn’t often that I find the time to cook, but when my son says he has big news I suppose I must make the time.”

It is a smooth prompt, and Bossuet thinks that moments like these make it clear how good she is at her job. Joly clears his throat, and nods. There’s a very deliberate cessation of food consumption – which, he supposes, is clever, because too often shocking news can lead to someone choking or having a coughing fit.

Joly reaches for his hand, and places it on the table with something like careful defiance.

“Boss is my boyfriend.”

There’s a brief moment of recoil – purely surprise, it seems, because Claude recovers quickly. “I’m glad,” he says, “All that pining wasn’t good for you.”

This is news to Bossuet, but he delights in hearing it. He steals a mirthful glance at Joly, who shrugs, unapologetic. “Why do you think my first words to you were what they were? They weren’t deliberate, but they weren’t exactly out of the blue.” There’s a light dusting of pink across his cheeks that Bossuet wants to keep forever.

“Well,” his mother smiles, “Ambassador will no longer do. Call me Kieu.”

(They don’t even kick him out when he accidentally topples his wine glass with his sleeve and promptly stains the rather expensive tablecloth. Joly must have really been waxing poetic about him to his parents.)

+

They’re walking home from the subway, hand in hand and pleasantly warmed by the wine that Bossuet didn’t manage to spill.

“What are you telling your parents?”

It isn’t as though Bossuet hasn’t thought about it. There’s no way he can keep this a secret. Joly has filled every aspect of his life with joy and if he tried to pass them off as just friend he would probably blurt out his love for him within the first five minutes of that farce.

Not to mention that he doesn’t want Joly to be his secret. He’s a gentleman, after all.

“I want to be fair to you, _Jolllly_ dear, so they’re going to learn about it from me, and promptly too.”

It’s a bit easier to say than to do, because he is nervous. Richard has never explicitly said he wouldn’t support him – he can’t very well kick him out of anything, but he could, hypothetically, cut him off. That would be bad enough, but it is a risk he is willing to take. He can always get a job. Until Richard came along, he’d been putting in hours carrying newspapers. That didn’t pay extremely well, but there are options.

Joly is worth the honesty.

+

Grantaire’s face lights up when they enter the Corinth hand in hand Friday evening. Bossuet can’t say for certain, but he can’t remember Grantaire genuinely smiling that often.

“On the house,” he tells them immediately, “Anything you want.”

“And the occasion?” Joly teases, though he accepts the drinks with good humor. His hand is resting on Bossuet’s thigh.

“Boss here no longer being allowed to give blood, I’m assuming. I’m all for selfishly keeping your blood to yourself.”

“Don’t let Enjolras hear you say that,” Joly snorts, nodding towards the doorway, where said man has just turned up, clad in a red jacket, his hair artfully tousled. Grantaire looks over his shoulder, then turns back and stares pointedly at the glasses he is polishing. His brow is furrowed in consternation as he rubs at one spot in particular. It’s disconcerting.

“Are you okay?” Bossuet asks, then feels like an idiot for asking.

“Yeah,” Grantaire nods, too quickly. “It’s 9:13, when else was he going to show up?”

He doesn’t have time to ask what that means, because Enjolras has already approached the bar to greet him, his voice quiet but intense.

“Hello, Apollo,” Grantaire says, in a much more jovial tone than before, “What can I get you?”

“You can give me something better than your previous opinion on Mill,” Enjolras leans over the bar with his elbows, a challenging, somewhat wild look in his eyes. He holds a few pieces of paper in his hands. “What the hell do you call this?”

“No can do,” Grantaire shakes his head, feigning regret, “ _This_ is as good as you’re gonna get.”

Needless to say, his words send Enjolras off into a heated monologue about _On Liberty_ , and Bossuet watches with no small amount of fascination as Grantaire crosses his arms in response. He looks serene, almost, watching Enjolras talk himself into a frenzy, like he would both like to preserve the moment for eternity and hide forever. Bossuet wonders if he’d find a stature of an angry Enjolras at Grantaire’s place, and then he considers that Grantaire probably wouldn’t have materials to spare for that.

(He and Joly have seen some of his work, mostly classical-inspired statures for the gardens of the very rich. Last year one well-off elderly patron stumbled upon his final piece, still displayed outside his old professor’s office, and seemingly started a trend, so now Grantaire has a relatively steady income from his preferred work for the first time in his life. But he isn’t quitting the Corinth anytime soon, it seems.)

“That’s also going to happen at some point,” Joly points out, dramatically sniffing the air, “I can smell the desire.”

+

“You know,” Joly says, sitting upright and effectively straddling Bossuet on the beds they have elected to permanently push together, “I didn’t take you for the type to want to take things slowly.”

“I’m equally disastrous at any speed,” Bossuet shakes his head, trying to regain some composure. He’s truthfully quite flustered with Joly on top of him – the man is sitting at exactly the right spot to drive him out of his mind, it is very unfair. And then he has the gall to roll his hips, like he doesn’t know Bossuet wants him.

“Disastrous?” Joly wonders, raising an eyebrow, “What I’ve witnessed of your prowess doesn’t spell disaster.”

“Oh?” Bossuet grins. “You’ve been paying attention to my prowess, have you?”

“You want to know a secret?”

“Boy, do I!”

“When we hooked up with Ela I might have imagined myself in her place,” Joly confesses, running a hand through his hair, slightly embarrassed.

“I’m going to guess you mean you imagined that while I was fucking her, because otherwise you’d be imagining fucking yourself, Jolllly.”

“Astute guess.”

“We can do that, if you want to,” Bossuet says, running his hands up Joly’s thighs. (He is still weak over Joly’s thighs. He likes them very much. They are the best thighs.)

“Can we do it now?”

“I mean…yeah. I’ve never done it with a guy though, surely that dictates some discussions to be had first?”

“Well, we’re using condoms, aren’t we? And I, having had sex with numerous guys, can show you how to prep me, if you…want that. Your job remains pretty similar.”

+

“I just can’t keep the two separate in my head,” Joly complains, burying his head in his hands in favor of actually smashing his head on the bar – that would be unsanitary.

“Isn’t the renal plasma flow just the renal blood flow multiplied with 1 minus the hematocrit?” Grantaire wonders as he stops by with another beer for Bossuet and a Gin Tonic for Joly. (Malaria-prophylaxis, if Joly is to be believed. Never mind the fact that France is not at all at risk for Malaria.)

“Excuse me, how the fuck do you know that?”

“Way back in the throes of my alcoholism, I suffered the indignity of kidney problems. You know me, I like knowing useless shit so I looked up some of the diagnostics and the rabbit hole just….” Grantaire shrugs, as though that would explain it. “So, from what I gather, you can use _PAH-Clearance as_ a stand-in for renal plasma flow, yeah? And _Creatinine Clearance_ works for the _Glomerular Filtration Rate_? Just make up a rhyme or some shit like that and you’ll never forget it.”

At this, Grantaire turns back to Enjolras, just in time for the man to have picked his jaw up off the floor. Bossuet and Joly are left in a very similar predicament.

(It’s become a very reliable occurrence, that one will find Enjolras sitting at the bar with Grantaire, sipping on something non-alcoholic – most days – and reading something while Grantaire serves other patrons. Bossuet finds out that this habit originated with Combeferre, but the man in question apparently only comes by once a week, whereas Enjolras has been here every time he has paid a visit in the last three months. Joly is right, it seems indicative. Enjolras doesn’t seem the type to waste anyone’s time, though Bossuet can’t say he knows much about that man, other than the fact that he is very, very intense.)

Bossuet barely makes out a: “You never told me…”

“Well, it’s none of your fucking business, is it? What’s this you were preaching about your liberty not infringing on mine? I think this makes for a good occasion to practice what you preach.”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras rebukes, seriously, looking a tad stricken, “Of course you don’t have to tell me anything.”

“How very big of you.” Grantaire snorts, going back to drying glasses, his primary tactic of distracting himself.

“That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t listen if you wanted to tell me anything. I told you, I want to get to know you.”

+

By the time spring has rolled around and replaced coats with lighter jackets – though Joly swears by scarves even in the warmer seasons, apparently – Bossuet can’t hold off any longer on bringing his boyfriend home to Richard’s place. It still feels exhilarating to even think it. Joly is his boyfriend. Bossuet’s got a _boyfriend_.

(A wonderful boyfriend who pouts at his textbooks and spends hours researching symptoms, a wonderful boyfriend who makes the best coffee in the morning, with just the right amount of caffeine that Bossuet will be caught in that pleasant state between just-right and slightly-high. It’s excellent.)

“You know I’d understand if you don’t want to come out to them yet, right?” Joly says as he eyes the subway seat next to him in distaste. “What’s important to me is that you’re alright, mentally as well as physically.”

“You’re sweet, Jolllly,” Bossuet murmurs, pulling Joly’s hand in for a distracted kiss. He is nervous, not afraid. There is a difference, in that he is not scared of being disowned; only he would quite like to know right this second _if_ he will be.

After the expected, embarrassing conversation with his mother about how she’d heard so much about Joly, they sit down for dinner, and Bossuet gets a strong sense of déjà-vu at the dinner table. A sense of anticipation in his mother, who seems to know he has something to say.

Well, might as well borrow from Joly’s eloquence, he thinks. This is the level he has sunken to after claiming debate to be his passion.

“Joly’s my boyfriend,” he blurts out, causing Richard to choke on his steak. (Both Bossuet and Joly had declined meat tonight, mostly because Joly read a study a few weeks ago about the correlation of animal products to developing diabetes, coronary disease and atherosclerosis, and insisted that he’d quite like to keep Bossuet for as long as possible. He’d obligingly agreed to cut out meat, mostly because those words had been incredibly sweet, and Bossuet is somewhat helpless when it comes to Joly’s eyes.)

His mother pats Richard on the back until he has stopped coughing, and once he has wiped his face with his napkin, he says: “I see.”

Bossuet isn’t entirely ignorant of the terse silence that has settled around the room. His mother, at least, is offering Joly a smile.

“Archibald, I’d like to talk with you for a second.”

Joly squeezes his hand in support, and then Bossuet follows Richard into his office.

(Richard talks about his time in the army, about how he had a fellow soldier he kind of liked, but how he instead chose to get married to a woman because it was just the easier thing to do. “If he makes you happy, champ, then you’re being a lot braver than I was, because your life is going to be harder. People are going to judge you for it, and you might very well lose opportunities over it. I know the world is changing, but sometimes it seems to me that nothing ever really does.”)

+

They meet Musichetta over the summer after their first year of living together, when Joly excitedly shows him the advertisement for the second apartment above the little Café Musain. She lives in the first one, apparently, and it seems the house in question belongs to her.

It’s a pretty apartment, with two rooms (one of which Joly insists on turning into a study instead of the slyly suggested sex dungeon, saying: “We might as well install that in the bedroom, but we definitely need to have talks about safety if you’re into – oh, I see, you were kidding. We can still talk about it.”), a bathtub Bossuet intends to use often, and an open living-room-kitchen-dining area. The rent is dirt cheap, comparatively.

Musichetta warns them that it’s because she starts throwing the ovens downstairs on at 5 in the morning, and that the previous tenants were apparently quite bothered by that.

They sign the lease as they are visiting, not least of all because the bathroom is meticulously clean and Joly almost swoons at the sight. Two weeks later they haul their belongings from student housing across the city in Feuilly’s car, with Bahorel’s help in carrying. Musichetta brings them _Carbonata_ and some fresh-baked bread, and they share the ‘first-apartment’ bottle of pinot noir Grantaire gifted them as he had to forego helping them move in – bartending shifts are a nightmare. (Though Bossuet suspects it may be because Enjolras has been occupying Grantaire’s time a lot.)

Bossuet thinks they’re going to get along great with Musichetta. She’s got a laugh so loud Bossuet would worry about waking the neighbors – except Musichetta _is_ their neighbor.

(She will resolutely not talk about her family. She will talk about absolutely anything else.)

+

By week number two of living above a bakery, Bossuet begins to understand why the previous tenants moved out. Being awakened at five in the morning is tough and he hates it, though Joly is usually already mostly conscious by then.

He sweetens the deal a great bit by apparently reaching peak libido so early in the morning. More often than not Bossuet will be waking up to Joly intent on seducing him.

(“I know you don’t like waking up so early each morning.”

“Maybe I don't, but you don’t need to bribe me with blowjobs into staying at this place, I love our apartment. We get free bread in the mornings.”

“There are a lot of things you would do for bread.”

“Plenty would do more. Now don’t be such a sourdough, come back here and kiss me.”)

As for Musichetta, they settle into her company very well. Most evenings the three of them will make dinner together – except for date night, at first – and Bossuet finds himself fascinated with her.

(There is still the refusal to talk about her family, flat-out, and neither he nor Joly are keen to push, but sometimes, Musichetta will reveal some tiny nugget that they treasure immensely. “My sister used to love that movie.”

“Thank you, I got this shirt from my grandfather.”

“Who doesn’t have a creepy uncle, though?”

They never press her about these statements, but sometimes Bossuet thinks Joly is sorely tempted to get out the notepad he mainly uses to write down questions that don’t relate to medicine at all but that he asks himself when his mind drifts off during lectures, to keep them fresh in his memory until such a time that he can come home to Bossuet and discuss them.)

+

Musichetta has a date tonight, with some guy she met at the gym.

“I’m normally super annoyed when guys hit on me at, well – anywhere, really – so I was ready to roll my eyes hard and reject him, but he just wanted to let me know that I left my phone on the treadmill, and then excused himself again with a smile,” she explains as Bossuet and Joly are perched on their couch, holding three different dresses in her hands expectantly.

“Christ, I don’t know,” Joly says, “I like the blue one.”

“Of course you like the blue one,” Bossuet snorts, “Blue is lovely, Muse, but the yellow looks so much nicer against your skin.”

“You think?” She frowns, holding the yellow sundress to her chest. “Anyway, his name is Sven, he’s Norwegian, and we’ve been smiling at each other across the gym for three weeks now, so I just asked him out because he wouldn’t, you know? He said he thinks it's creepy and predatory when guys hit on girls in the gym.”

“We love a guy that respects boundaries,” Bossuet assures her, nodding heavily.

“I’ll drink to that,” Joly agrees, clinking their beer bottles together.

“Still, can one of you call me like fifteen minutes into the date? Just to be sure? My best friend who normally does this is out of the country and her minutes for international calls are very limited.”

“Absolutely we can,” they agree, grinning. “Now get changed or you’re going to be late.”

When Musichetta steps out of the bathroom in her yellow dress, curls free and natural, Bossuet has to take a very deep sip of his beer. Fuck – that was unexpected. It isn’t as though the woman walks around in nothing but frumpy sacks of potato cloth every day – he’d have to be blind not to notice she is stunning, and even then he is quite certain her beauty would be apparent – but he’s never seen her look like this.

She’s genuinely excited and nervous about this, there’s a charmed smile on her face when Joly gives her a somewhat awkward but enthusiastic finger gun, and her freckles are like a little bit of gold dust all over her face. They see her off and then collapse back on the couch together.

“So…” Joly says, running a nervous hand through his hair, “She looked good.”

“Yeah,” Bossuet agrees, emphatically.

(The fifteen minute call once she has arrived is answered, and quickly ended once more. Apparently it’s going very well.)

+

Musichetta meets Enjolras and Grantaire when they arrive at the Musain together, because Enjolras wants to talk with Bossuet about a rally that the universities’ black student union is putting together, and Grantaire and Joly have plans to go to a park and sketch pigeons, for whatever reason.

There’s a patron that’s holding up the entire line, leaning against the register and obviously interested in the lady behind it, to Musichetta’s immense discomfort. Bossuet is about to step in, but Joly stops him with a hand to his elbow, pointing towards Grantaire, heaving a put-upon sigh, before saying: “Hey man, she’s clearly not interested, yeah? Also, very bad form to flirt with someone while they’re working, just saying.”

“You got a problem?”

“Not that she can’t reject you herself, let’s not take any agency away from her, but you’re a paying customer, so she’s being polite because that’s what people in the service industry do. Let it go, get your drink and move on with your day.”

By now Grantaire has likely drawn the ire of the man all onto himself, because he crowds close, threatening. Meanwhile Enjolras looks as though he is having a somewhat belated epiphany, staring at Grantaire, blushing hard.

“Tough guy, huh?” The flirting asshole asks Grantaire, clearly spoiling for a fight. Next second, he’s aiming his fist at Grantaire, but the man ducks out of the way with swiftness Bossuet would never have expected. (When he recounts the story later to Bahorel, the guy will scoff and say: “I should fucking hope that bastard knows how to dodge blows, I’ve only been training him to do so for years.”)

As the guy is about to draw back his fist, Grantaire catches him at the wrist.

“If you want to throw hands, then by all means, let us outside. I don’t mind. But there are still people here who want to get coffee.”

The guy squares his shoulders and motions outside.

“Is it too bold to ask for your favor, oh sweet Apollo?” Grantaire turns to Enjolras, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t be stupid, Grantaire,” says Enjolras, clearly concerned.

“Just as well, that'll do. I’ll take a mocha. Be right back.”

Musichetta stands behind the counter, staring after Grantaire’s retreating form, scoffing but helplessly amused. “Impossible man,” she says, before smiling at Enjolras and adding: “Lucky you.”

Enjolras reddens even further, but does not correct her, to Bossuet’s amusement. Instead, he orders their coffees and tips extremely well. Bossuet thinks now is as good a time as any to make their presence known.

(She meets Courfeyrac and Combeferre next.

“Without a doubt the sweetest couple I’ve ever met, they’re absolutely adorable.”

“They aren’t together, Chetta. Joly even had a date with Courfeyrac once. We were as confused as you are.”

“Oh. Then I guess you two get to keep your spot,” she toasts them with her glass of wine, before looking to the floor for a second. Bossuet isn’t sure if he is imagining it or if there’s a blush on her cheeks. It is hard to tell in this lighting.

“We are sweet, aren’t we, Jolllly dearest?”

“Unquestionably we’re very sweet. It is almost ground for concern that I might be developing diabetes after all, despite all precautions taken.”)

+

Musichetta goes on three more dates with Sven before she brings him over to her place, just as Joly and Bossuet are cleaning the corridor between the two apartments, with loud music blasting from the speakers Bossuet borrowed from Grantaire specifically for this occasion. If he is going to spend the rest of his life cleaning with Joly, they are going to be cleaning to good music and intermittently dancing to said music.

“Ah,” Musichetta laughs, “Sven, these are my tenants. Tenants, Sven.”

Sven is good looking, Bossuet concedes, tall and blond and definitely someone that goes to the gym regularly. Hard to rival Bahorel when it comes to physique, but there is something distinctly Nordic about Sven. (“Viking-like, I know,” Joly giggles into his chest later when he brings it up. “You think that’s the kind of guy she likes?”)

The next morning, the oven starts at 7:00, and Bossuet doesn’t know whether he wants to write Sven a love letter or whether he wants Sven to never come over again. There is something in that statement that perhaps he should examine more closely, but he’s afraid to.

+

Musichetta’s shower breaks in October and she complains about it loudly.

“It’s like trying to wake myself up with a garden hose, and I profoundly hate it. I can take the dulcet spray of a shower head, but when it’s coming straight out of the pipes…” She shakes herself like a wet dog, to demonstrate.

“So use our tub,” Joly shrugs, peeling yet another Kiwi in the odd method he uses that Bossuet simply cannot grasp. He just takes a spoon to them.

“That violates like every landlord-tenant contract,” Musichetta points out, though she looks tempted.

“Then just call us your friends and we’re all in the clear,” Joly tells her, throwing wink that Bossuet kind of wants to raise his eyebrows at. (The thing is, Bossuet has seen what a flirting Joly looks like, sometimes Joly even deigns to flirt with him, when he is feeling particularly de-stressed from Uni. This is a flirty Joly in his natural habitat; where he gains confidence he can scarcely muster anywhere else. What does that mean?)

Two weeks later he walks into his bathroom in the evening because he really just wants to brush his teeth and fall into bed after finishing yet another paper on the legalities of porn distribution. He doesn’t notice that someone is already in there until he gets a face full of Musichetta, shocked, covered only by bubbles and with candles surrounding the bath.

“Ah, shit, the lock is broken,” Bossuet remembers, immediately putting a hand over his eyes and cringing. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Would you believe me if I said something similar happened to me with Joly before we got together? Only, he was being fucked at the time. Whoops, that’s too much information already…why are you laughing?”

“Because you’re adorable,” Musichetta replies. “I don’t mind.”

There is something unspoken in the air, an addition to the sentence, a quiet: ‘you can look’ that Bossuet doesn’t want to trust. He takes the hand away, the other still resting on the doorknob.

Musichetta is beautiful, simply put. Her skin looks soft and unbearably smooth, her collarbones are as delicate as her hands (Joly has talked about her hands very often, Bossuet recalls absentmindedly. Bossuet finds himself extremely partial to her collarbones, to Musichetta in general.)

“I mean, if you’re just going to stand there, you might as well break out a bottle of wine, don’t you think? The water won’t be going cold for a while.”

Bossuet rolls up his shirtsleeves, disappears to get the wine, as ordered. That is how Joly finds them when he comes home from his internship two hours later. Musichetta in the bathtub, hair up in a poof that looks perfectly styled in its messiness and sipping from a glass of wine, Bossuet next to the tub, leaning against the sink, drinking from the bottle.

“Jolllly,” Bossuet calls out, “Join the lady and myself, why don’t you?”

He pats the tiles next to him, and Joly curls up into his side, exhausted. “I watched someone die today,” he reveals, quietly. Bossuet holds him close and feeds him wine and kisses.

“Well, boys,” Musichetta says after the water is drained and only bubbles remain, almost indecent, “As fun as this has been, for the sake of everyone’s innocence I’d ask you to hand me a towel and turn around while I alight.”

(Bossuet pointedly tries to ignore the fact that the image of Musichetta in that bathtub sticks with him.)

+

Joly is in the middle of quite spectacularly eating him out, when they are interrupted by a crash from the next door apartment. At least, Bossuet is interrupted, Joly, with Bossuet’s legs wrapped around his face, is quite impervious to outside noise at the moment. Bossuet tugs on his hair, but that doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, in fact it only renews Joly’s fervor. He puts that observation down for later consideration.

“Joly,” he pants, unable to make his voice sound serious. “Joly, stop.”

That works.

“What is it?” Joly asks, mouth wet and eyes a little reddened as he comes up for air.

“Someone is throwing things next door.”

Now that Joly is paying attention, he definitely hears it to. “It’s also midnight, Boss,” he points out, “You want to go check on her now?”

“Uh…yeah?”

“Alright, and how about the fact that we’re both rock hard? You thought about that?”

“I’m going to be frank with you, Joly, you give me five tugs or so and I’ll be hard no longer.”

Joly snorts, but does as suggested, and studiously swallows to make clean-up easier. (Two weeks ago they had their first joint trip to the student health clinic to get tested. Since then Joly has been particularly enthusiastic about things Bossuet would have sworn he would be cringing at. He doesn’t mind. Not at all.)

“I’m good,” Joly grimaces, nodding towards a very telling spot on the bedsheets, when Bossuet offers the same treatment. “Let’s go see what’s wrong.”

Musichetta, when they find her, is sitting on her kitchen floor in a worn-out t-shirt, eyes red-rimmed and several plates broken.

“Sometimes…” she sobs, voice broken, “Sometimes my mother calls and I don’t recognize her number before answering.”

They don’t ask anything further, but try to get her to stand up. Bossuet picks her up and carries her to bed while Joly cleans up the broken plates. In hindsight it doesn't look like she was throwing them, but more like she dropped them accidentally. (“It’s a shame, I think they were hand-painted. Looks a lot like Feuilly’s style, doesn’t it?”)

Musichetta settles into bed and Bossuet sits on it, concerned. “I hate her,” Musichetta closes her eyes tightly, “I hate her so much and I still crumble whenever I hear her voice.”

“Please don’t go,” Musichetta begs, rubbing at her eyes, “I’m sorry I’m like this, but I really need company right now.”

“Hey,” Bossuet says softly, pulling her into his arms again. He’s been assured by Joly that they are very good arms for feeling safe and calm. “You don’t need to apologize for how you feel, you hear me? Whatever the story with your mother is, I’m sure you have good reasons not to want her in your life. You don’t need to explain. You don’t need to justify your boundaries, Muse.”

He feels Musichetta’s tears soak through his t-shirt and Joly stands in the door to the bedroom, equally concerned. Bossuet kisses Musichetta’s hair. Joly comes to sit on her other side, stroking her back.

They fall asleep together, all three of them.

+

Things are different after that, Bossuet thinks, with some guilt. The doors to their apartments are never locked anymore, often they aren’t even closed. He doesn’t mind that. The second change is what gives him headaches. (And he is a fellow that rarely gets headaches, not even after a long night out at the Corinth with a steady stream of drinks on the house.)

Musichetta keeps looking at him.

The reason he knows this is because he keeps looking at Musichetta.

There is guilt, sure, but there is also something deeper, a longing. None of this lessens the intensity of his affection for Joly, but he can’t ignore it either. Not when Musichetta will rest her feet in his lap after a long day, when they will pass afternoons on her couch reading together. (She is very literary, instead of a TV she has a whole wall of bookshelves, a self-prescribed snob when it comes to taste. Everything on her shelves is carefully collected, books she does not like are sorted out, donated, gifted, etc. The shelves are a compendium of her personality.)

She’s also got tiny feet, and he finds himself rubbing them distractedly, one hand on her ankle. He hears a sharp intake of breath, and glances at Musichetta, to find her eyes closed, her lips pulled into a slight smile, her head back against the couch. She looks relaxed.

(The combination with images in his head of her in the bath is not a good one. Not at all. Oh, Lord.)

And so, he decides he has to do something about it. That night he makes Joly skip dinner with Musichetta, apologizes profusely, and tells him that they need to take a long walk.

Poor Joly looks genuinely concerned for the longest time, and Bossuet hates seeing that look on his face, so he just blurts out the truth: “I think I like Musichetta.”

Joly very carefully chews on his lip, taking a long time to respond. When he does, he is met with an: “Okay.”

“That’s it?” Bossuet says, stumped. Joly shrugs. “You saying ‘I think’ really means ‘I’m sure’. Personally, I would hate for things to be over between us, but obviously I can’t make you stay with me, nor would I want to when you-”

“Joly, no,” Bossuet gasps, softly, pulling him into his arms, kissing him for the longest time. Joly clutches onto his lapels and exhales against his lips.

“I’m getting mixed signals here, Boss,” he whispers.

“I love you,” Bossuet says, with intention. “I love you so much. You are my soulmate. You are my crossword puzzle partner. You are the man I want to make shitty vegan pancakes – and eventually better ones once Grantaire has handed over the perfected recipe – for until we both die at the ripe old age of 115.”

“I love you too,” Joly rubs his nose against Bossuet’s, scrunching it in the absolutely adorable way that makes Bossuet go crazy. “And your pancakes are not shitty.”

“Good,” Bossuet says, and kisses him again, because he needs Joly to understand exactly how much he loves him.

“And what is this business with Musichetta then?”

“I…am attracted to her. Very much. And I’m about 90% certain she wouldn’t say no to me because of me, but rather because she is too principled and genuinely good to be The Other Woman.”

“And because of Sven,” Joly points out, nodding, “Bit presumptuous of you though, isn’t it? You’re not very good at telling when people are into you. Case in point.”

He gestures towards himself demonstratively.

“Uh, no? That was because I didn’t buy into the fact that I could be lucky enough to end up with someone like you? Obviously?”

“We’re getting off track. You’re attracted to Musichetta, I don’t blame you, she’s exquisite. What are you going to do about it?”

“What’s this? Are we in the same boat?”

“Probably not, because she’s never given me any indication that she might be into me, and I’m very good at figuring that kind of thing out. But if you’re asking ‘Joly, are you attracted to our amazing landlady?’ then the answer is a resounding and emphatic yes. I’m wild for her.”

“And you never thought to tell me?”

“I didn’t think it of much importance, because I never considered a course of action past acknowledging the fact that I felt such feelings.”

“Here I’ve been drowning in guilt for the last few weeks, and all this time it wouldn’t have mattered to you?”

“What matters is what you choose, isn’t it? You can’t choose who you’re attracted to, but you can choose to stay with me regardless of attractions to other folks. It’s that simple.”

“Well, when you say it like that…”

+

They get roped into a double date with Sven and Musichetta one night, when Sven’s friends cancel due to a stomach bug that struck them both down.

(Though Sven tells a concerned Joly that those words are code for wanting to stay in and fuck, and nothing to be flustered over.)

It is with both satisfaction and discontent that Bossuet realizes that Sven is a genuinely great guy, who seems to care a good deal about Musichetta. Something about it sits unhappily in his stomach, when he sees her lean into his touch, sees him smile at her and then glance down at his plate, before glancing back to her.

He’s got very acceptable political views too, which Joly might grill him on a little as they come round to the groups Bossuet has been touring with Bahorel on campus.

“I agree,” Sven nods, “Something has to change. Clearly, the fact that groups like this still exist should be indicative of larger injustices, and yet…I mean, if things were alright, folks wouldn’t take to the streets so often. It kind of feels like every day you see a different cause that makes you think.”

“Are you in any of those groups?” Bossuet inquires, curiously.

“I wouldn’t know which one to join, honestly. I mean, look at me: I’m straight, I’m white, I’m a guy – I’m even kind of well-off. On every single one of these issues I help perpetuate that kind of inequality just by existing. I’d have to join all of them, and even then I wouldn’t know how I could do that without seemingly prioritizing where you can’t actually prioritize, do you know what I mean? So, I mostly stick with the protests and see what I can do there – sometimes white people shields are kind of useful against police officers that get too into rough-housing.”

“Some would say your words reek of privilege,” Joly points out.

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Sven nods. “Ideally, what I’d love would be for those groups to come together, but that just doesn’t seem feasible.”

Don’t they know it.

The evening is pleasant, but somehow Bossuet is still left feeling slightly dejected.

+

“Boss,” Joly presses kisses onto his back, when he wakes up from his self-prescribed nap after another tiring paper was handed in. “You’ve been asleep for a full REM cycle it’s time to wake up and canoodle with your loving significant other.”

“Hrmphf,” replies Bossuet, wiping drool from his mouth. He glances at the woodwork clock Joly insisted on decorating the space above the TV with. “You’re home late.”

“Am not,” Joly argues, “I’ve been watching you sleep for the last 30 minutes. I was leaving the hospital as you texted me about your much yearned-for nap.”

“Glad you’re home,” Bossuet yawns, stretching a little to sit upright, “How was -”

He’s cut off by Joly’s lips, and Joly’s smaller body barreling into him as he maneuvers it onto Bossuet’s lap. “I’ll tell you all about the gory details when we’re done for the night, but right now…”

One agile hand snakes its way into Bossuet’s sweatpants. If Bossuet had to describe his symptoms now, he’d start by noting general shortness of breath, tightness in his chest and an increased blood flow down south.  Joly’s a very good doctor-to-be, in the way he immediately does a check-up on said area with every available instrument. (His mouth and hands, before the metaphor gets away from Bossuet.)

Joly seats himself on his lap and there is almost something desperate about the way that he starts moving on him. “Am I a terrible person, if I imagine her here with us?” He wonders, voice sharp and a little hoarse from his previous efforts.

“What do you imagine her doing?”

“Watching, for now,” Joly sighs, “She’s trying to get the measure of us before she joins in, most likely. I think she’d like being in control.”

“And what does she do once she’s had an eye full of you, in my lap, begging to get off, chasing release?” Bossuet does not slip into a dominating role easily, but this he can do. His words are more easily found when talking in hypotheticals, as it takes a great deal of pressure off. Joly’s imagination is a rampant thing anyway, it just needs a little direction.

“Ah, I don’t know,” Joly cries out, “But I’d like for her to touch me, while you-”

Bossuet’s hand follows the fantasy, and Joly shudders, all the breath punched out of him in a second, “Yes…yes…that’s good, Boss, that’s _so_ good.”

Bossuet comes like that, into Joly, hard and fast. He takes a quick beat to get his breathing back under control, then continues: “Does she just use her hands, in your fantasies? You don’t think she’d be more creative? Do you think she’d laugh that wicked laugh of her’s as she goes down on you?  I think she would…”

“Oh,” Joly gasps, softly, thrusting up into Bossuet’s hand now. “ _Oh_.”

“That’s right. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I know you love me on my knees for you, but you’d like that too, wouldn’t you? And then, afterwards, you’d lay her out on the bed and eat her out for hours and I’d watch you do it – I’d-”

It is somewhat inopportune that recent months have made boundaries in this house lax enough for their door to be literally and figuratively open at all times, because Musichetta comes through the door with the groceries they added to her list (because that’s what they do, the three of the are domestic enough to ask the group chat before any one of them goes grocery shopping), sees them on the couch, and says: “Holy shit.”

Joly, unfortunately and to his later great embarrassment, is too far gone to stop himself from crying out and arching backwards, before he hides his face in Bossuet’s neck, still shivering.

Musichetta has the presence of mind to leave their groceries on the kitchen counter before she flees the scene.

(Maybe Bossuet is imagining it, but after that day it seems to him that Musichetta is more often than not blushing at the sight of affection between them.)

+

“We could ask her, you know,” Joly says one night, when they’re in bed together. Bossuet put up candles despite the safety hazard Joly proclaims them to cause – with a solemn promise to extinguish them carefully before they fall asleep – and by now they’re sweaty and well-sated.

“Musichetta?” Bossuet wonders, poking his tongue into Joly’s navel to make him squirm and giggle. He likes this, likes exploring Joly’s body in the aftermath of their passions, when he is loose and slightly sweaty and has that wonderfully fond look in his eyes. He’s found several of his favorite spots with this method, including the navel and the dimpled back of Joly’s thigh, where his ass ends. He thinks he’d very much like to do the same with Musichetta. He’s already declared her ankles as wonderful, and her collarbones, and he admits he is curious to see what else is wonderful about her. (He suspects there to be a lot.)

“And what would we say?” Bossuet asks, rolling on top of Joly and pinning his arms above his head. “How about a casual threesome, oh sexy landlady?”

Joly rolls his eyes, but he laughs. 

“I’d thought – Well, I’d thought about adding her into the mix on a more permanent basis.”

“I knew that book on polyamory wasn’t for med school,” Bossuet grins, triumphantly. “Combeferre did look vaguely curious when he brought it over.”

“He takes care never to appear so, but he is terribly nosy sometimes.”

“Hm,” Bossuet angles Joly’s leg upwards so he can kiss up the inside of it, from toes to groin, following the path of the _Vena Saphena Magna_ that Joly painted on him with non-toxic paint a few weeks back. (It had taken Bossuet no time at all to convince Joly that studying anatomy this way is _incredibly_ sexy.) “I wouldn’t even know how to initiate a conversation like that.”

“Well, how did you do it with me?”

“I kissed you when we were both drunk, remember? Getting together with you was remarkably simple and I still can’t believe it worked.”

“I remember,” Joly says, fondly. “We could start by testing the waters, couldn’t we?”

+

Bossuet helps Musichetta out with the Musain on a busy Sunday after the employee on duty calls in sick and the other is unavailable for a trip halfway across the country for her day off. It’s not really his calling – he burns himself thrice on a single cup of coffee, he doesn’t time the ovens right at first, and he’s terrible with any sort of foam decorating. But he can work the register well-enough, and customers seem to genuinely smile at him when he greets them, so she delegates him there and takes over everything else like an absolute professional.

Bossuet is kind of floored.

And somewhere along the way, he slips into a daydream about a future like this; Bossuet and Musichetta working together in something like relaxed harmony, Joly coming home from the hospital after a long shift to sit with them and laugh until it is closing time. Bossuet leaning over the counter to give Bossuet a kiss, only for Musichetta to demand an equal distribution of kisses – he likes that daydream.

(They’ve learned a fair bit about Musichetta’s politics since they essentially moved in with her, in that she has a very radical mind but is a great deal too busy to fight for any causes. Bossuet himself has been to the black student union with Bahorel a few times now, but the whole social justice schtick on their campus is too unorganized, too convoluted. Grantaire is very much right when he says that the current state of things makes any sort of positive change nigh impossible.)

But Bossuet is getting ahead of himself. Of course he gets the impression that the lady might like him, but a vague inclination is very different to a longing for a polyamorous triad.

The stream of customers slows at around one in the afternoon, and Bossuet finally gets a chance to take care of his poor, maltreated hands. Musichetta only fusses over them a little, nodding when he insists he is okay instead of tenderly administering every bit of aid possible, like Joly would.

“I liked that more than I expected,” Bossuet admits, his hand still being held.

“Working in a Café?”

“It seems the thing to do,” he grins in response.

“You managed well enough, once we found a way to keep you from injuring yourself. You know, I thought you were kidding when you said you were clumsy.”

“Muse, you should know by now that I _never_ , ever kid about anything.”

It gets that wonderful laugh out of Musichetta again, and Bossuet tries to commit it to memory.

“I think, sometimes, that I’d really prefer something like this over being a lawyer. I don’t think I’m made for stuffy suits and the like,” he admits, a little more somber. Musichetta gives him a quizzical look.

“Law gets you a very financially secure future.”

“So does medicine, and Joly is passionate enough about his future job to earn bread for the both of us. Me, I do law because my step-father told me he thought I might have a knack for it, but I’m not like Courfeyrac…you know? He’s got verve. He takes higher classes for the heck of it, because he wants to be able to do pro-bono cases for the misrepresented as soon as possible. But when I think about a career in law, I mostly come up blank.”

“I’m going to be honest with you, Bossuet,” Musichetta sighs, “I didn’t think owning a Café was the future I was meant to have when I was growing up, idyllic though it may feel now. It was the opportunity I snatched up for myself after my parents kicked me out.”

It feels unspeakably intimate, because he knows this revelation is something Musichetta shares with practically no one.

“But I’m happy with my life now, and I may not have a large sum left over at the end of the month, but I’ve got enough. But you’ve got this fantastic opportunity to at least finish your studies, keep all avenues open…I’d make the most of that.”

“Everyone always says that,” Bossuet sighs, “But what if maybe I want to spend the rest of my life working the cash register and watching you make little art pieces in cappuccinos?”

“In that case I’d still recommend you finish your studies, if only to give me legal advice and extend your usefulness to the Musain a bit more,” she laughs.

“Is that a promise of future employment?”

Musichetta sighs, then shrugs, all so wonderfully wistful.

“I think your lovely boyfriend might be a better person to discuss your future with,” Musichetta points out, and if Bossuet thinks it to be an odd if not unwelcome – it is never unwelcome – time to bring up Joly, he doesn’t say so.

“He is lovely, isn’t he?” Bossuet smiles, “As are you.”

He can’t quite decipher the look in Musichetta’s eyes, but he thinks the blush is promising.

 

(Later he asks Joly what he would do if Bossuet decided not to become a lawyer after all.

“That gives us one more distinguishable trait from Combeferre and Courfeyrac, does it not? What would you like to do instead?”)

+

Joly comes home one day and says: “You know, I think Musichetta might actually like me too. I was just downstairs in the Café with her, and I swear she blushed hard when I helped her re-do the bun she keeps her hair in. Have you noticed how lovely her hair is? Those curls are something else, and the way she takes care of them – it kind of makes me want to sneak into her shower to understand the regimen she uses. In an entirely non-creepy fashion, of course.”

“Shea butter conditioner and a rose shampoo,” Bossuet retorts, smiling. “She used our bathtub for almost two months, you really didn’t notice?”

“Oh, you know how I can't smell anything when I've got a cold, and I seem to always be having a cold,” Joly ducks his head, “Anyway, she totally blushed, and then I kind of did my thing and let my hand linger, and she kind of gave a lovely little gasp…”

“You think the waters are sufficiently tested?”

(Two days later, they get an unwelcome reminder of Musichetta’s actual unavailability, as Sven comes whistling in to get a coffee and some kisses from Musichetta while Joly is studying with Combeferre at a table in the Musain and Bossuet is on his way out to meet Jehan to attend a panel on reproductive rights with them. He looks away from that display of affection, meets Joly’s eyes as they commiserate.)

 

+

“I still need someone to go with me,” Musichetta sighs dejectedly when she talks about how excited she is to see her favorite musical. Her best friend is still living in a different country, but: “What about Sven?” Joly poses the question with furrowed brows as he adds various seeds to their side salad for the evening. Everything else is already dished up. 

“That’s over,” Musichetta admits, tracing her fork with one carefully manicured finger.

Never have Bossuet and Joly snapped to attention faster.

“Did he do something?”

“What happened?”

“Oh my god, I’m sorry I brought it up…”

“You don’t need to tell us anything if you don’t want to…”

“Boys, boys,” Musichetta raises her hands, placatingly, “It didn’t work out, that’s all. He came by two weeks ago and I ended it. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, he didn’t do anything.”

“Then why?”

“Because he’s not who I want, and it wasn’t fair to him to pretend otherwise.”

(Neither man asks who exactly it is that Musichetta wants, but as they share a meaningful look, one thing is clear. Mission: Seduce Musichetta is back on.)

+

They take her ice-skating – Bossuet has to tap out after about five minutes because he manages to land on his ass about every twenty seconds, but he watches Joly, who loved ice-skating when he was younger, lead Musichetta around the ice by both hands. It’s a wonderful sight, with what ease Joly moves on the ice, even backwards. Musichetta is a little wobbly still, but she’s a trooper and every single time she stumbles a little bit, Joly gently steadies her and gives her an encouraging smile, until Joly starts showing off a little and pirouetting around her. She huffs a little and puts her hands on her hips, demanding he show her how. By the time their time is up, Musichetta has managed just about three successful turns on her own. She’s smiling, radiant.

Bossuet is very content to wait with three steaming mugs of mulled wine for them when they finally make it off the ice. Musichetta’s freckles aren’t as visible in winter, but there are a few stray snowflakes caught in her curls and on her colorful knitted cap, and that looks at least equally lovely. Joly is red in the face from the cold – his nose especially – and he is bundled in a thick, woolen scarf that makes Bossuet want to pull him in and kiss him breathless. Overall, he can say of himself that he is very much a man in love.

They take her to the movies – Joly apologizes profusely for freaking out a little when he sits in a slightly wet seat, and he calms him down gently while Musichetta goes to the cashier to ask if they can sit somewhere else. The movie is actually terrible, they all agree, and they spend the whole way home ridiculing it until Musichetta’s laughter garners evil eyes from other passengers on the subway. Joly and Bossuet tell her to studiously ignore it.

One of them gets up at five to help her in the Musain almost every day, they help her close up shop when it’s not one of her two employees taking care of everything.

They introduce Musichetta to the idea of hanging out more with their close friends, inviting her to come along to Grantaire and Combeferre’s fencing competition – where Enjolras and Courfeyrac have shown up, predictably.

Grantaire talks about fencing with Musichetta for a long time, nodding, smile firmly in place, and then offers to teach her the basics of it, if she likes. Musichetta seems charmed and Joly suggests letting R in on their plan to seduce the lady, a surefire implication in their words, until they think better of it. After all, they want her to make whatever choice will make her happiest. That might not be them. 

(Even if her conversations with Grantaire effectively block any argument Enjolras had wanted to make with the man.)

Grantaire is also the one who unknowingly does their work for them when he invites Musichetta to come along for the boxing match he and Bahorel have coming up in a week.

(Enjolras also shows up to that, though he doesn’t have the convenient excuse of Combeferre’s presence at the ready for that. Grantaire stares when he spots him, and afterwards he excuses himself quickly to take a walk with his Apollo.)

They go get drinks with Bahorel afterwards, and when Feuilly comes into the Grantaire-less Corinth, late and a little out of breath, Musichetta gets up and flies into his arms before introductions are ever made.

“He’s my best friend’s brother,” Musichetta explains when they all stare. She ruffles Feuilly’s hair, and the gesture is so similar, his fond, put-upon huff so familiar, that Bossuet and Joly realize who Musichetta’s best friend is at exactly the same time. Well, fuck.

(“So…” Musichetta grins wolfishly, when they’re back home, “You two are the guys who treated Ela right, huh?”

They may or may not be entirely red in the face. Eventually, Joly nods.

Musichetta sighs: “It’s almost unfair, really…” And then she doesn’t elaborate.)

“I feel like we’re on a good track,” Joly says, after they’ve dropped her off in her bed, a little buzzed, and made sure she took her hoop earrings out.

+

They’re on the couch together, because Musichetta was too tired to muster energy for pints at the pub, all three of them, and they’re watching a movie together. (Briefly they had floated the idea of showing a movie that involved polyamory to bring the subject up, unfortunately there didn’t seem to be a vast resource of positive portrayals, and they weren’t about to throw literary resources on the topic at her and hope she gets the hint.)

“We kind of want to talk to you about something,” Joly says, and that’s the cue Bossuet has been waiting for, so he smiles, gets up, and goes to retrieve the flowers from the bedroom.

(“Red Roses may be cliché, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy them the most anyway – there’s such a stigma to liking what is popular these days, like, there are genuinely guys who get off on judging women for being ‘basic’ and I’m tired of it. Why can’t women just enjoy things they like? If loads of women like red roses, it’s probably just because red roses are fucking great!” – Musichetta, four months ago. They’ve been paying attention.)

“If you want to talk, why is he leaving?”

“To get you these,” Bossuet says, clearing his throat because nervousness has rendered his voice maybe a little squeaky. Musichetta’s head recoils a little, in surprise.

“I’m missing something, aren’t I?”

“Um, no,” Bossuet says, standing behind Joly, who is at least equally nervous. "We just discovered that apparently we've been much less obvious than we intended."

 “We want you to be our girlfriend, Muse,” Joly says, bluntly, before continuing,  “Which, admittedly, is _very_ straight-forward and not at all how we wanted to ease you into the whole of it, especially since you like that guy, but honesty is the best policy and all that…”

Musichetta is staring at them, mouth agape, roses clutched to her chest.

“Which – by the way, we should mention that nothing has to change if you don’t want it to, okay? If we totally misread and you really just want to stay friends we can one hundred percent do that. Please don’t feel pressured to do anything just because we’re dumb idiots who are both a little bit in love with you.”

“The guy I like is both of you,” Musichetta reveals, eyes closed tightly. “I wasn’t going to say anything, obviously, the two of you were really happy together and just…utterly perfect…so, yeah. I’m having a bit of a hard time believing this is happening, but I'm saying yes.”

“Can I kiss you?” Joly wonders, the physical embodiment of the heart eyes emoji. Musichetta glances at Bossuet for a second, then back to Joly, and then she leans in to lay one on him.

Bossuet gets his turn next, and her lips taste sweet, very much like the popcorn they just consumed together.

“I need to go put these in a vase,” she murmurs when she pulls away.

“Not to worry, we’ve got you covered,” says Bossuet, then promptly trips and slices his hand on the shattered glass.

Their first official relationship outing is a trip to the ER where Combeferre interns, who raises an eyebrow but intuitively offers congratulations when Musichetta kisses Bossuet’s head.   

(The next few days are spent intermittently figuring out how three people make out with one another and all the physical dynamics of that, as well as figuring out how the whole thing is going to work emotionally. If Joly insists that they follow the steps suggested by the book Combeferre lent them, then Bossuet and Musichetta are only too happy to comply. All of them want to do this right.)

+

It’s easy, Bossuet considers, a few weeks down the line, to be in a relationship with two such wonderful people. Most nights Musichetta sleeps in their bed, but occasionally she withdraws into her own apartment still, all the while assuring them that sometimes she just needs space.

(There is a lot about Musichetta that she hasn’t told them yet, and they aren’t prying. “The point of a relationship is to be honest, but that doesn’t mean you have to bare everything. Only what you’re comfortable with,” they assure her. It is still new, after all, but Bossuet suddenly feels like the luckiest man on earth.)

By the end of Joly’s fifth Semester, they are invited to a party at Combeferre’s place. (“Not a party,” Combeferre corrects an excited Courfeyrac, tucked into his side and wrapped around him, “More like a small get together of friends. Ten people or so, I think.”)

Enjolras greets them all with nods – Courfeyrac had shrugged and explained once that the guy isn’t big on touching, and no one has seen anything to indicate otherwise. Occasionally he apparently seeks out comfort with Courfeyrac or Combeferre, but that is it – but he reserves a smile for Musichetta that looks incredibly genuine and it goes a long way towards making her feel comfortable.

Their other friends have no such reservations, both Jehan and Bahorel pull her into enthusiastic hugs – Bahorel’s sheer size means he practically lifts her off the ground to do so – and Grantaire gives her a kiss on the cheek.

(She gets along _really_ well with Grantaire. Grantaire is generally considered to be a fan-favorite among every girlfriend in the group, over the years.)

Feuilly, when he arrives, brings greetings from Ela and Musichetta takes a call from her after she has apparently found out about the new state of her relationship.

It’s a pleasant evening, all things considered. Grantaire proves his musical prowess by strumming a few whimsical notes on the guitar until someone – Courfeyrac – requests Wonderwall. There’s dancing, during which Bossuet almost busts his nose (there’s a little blood), and then there’s conversation.

At some point Bahorel relays his frustration with the gay-straight alliance on campus, which he claims is being run only to serve the interest of gay white males, mostly ignoring deeply intertwined issues.

(“You’re straight, Bahorel.”

“Straight up angry at the state of things, maybe,” Bahorel snorts, flicking Grantaire’s nose.)

There is a little bit of discussion on non-straight rights in general, and if Bahorel is qualified to make comments critiquing their efforts as the only straight person in the room.

(“Musichetta doesn’t really count, even if she’s only into men, because she’s into two of them…is polyamory in the acronym?"

"Who even knows anymore."

"I think it should be.”)

“What Bahorel is trying to say, I think,” Feuilly looks thoughtful, “Is that there is little to no coordination between all these social justice clubs, because they all focus on their own issue instead of recognizing how much they intersect, you know? He’s got connections with most of them, so he sees the thread woven in between, but others possibly can’t. A white gay man can easily claim that his oppression takes precedence out of everything wrong in this world, for him, and why wouldn’t he? If he didn’t make that his priority he’d have to recognize that while he may be part of one oppressed group, he might still contribute to oppression in another group…it’s uncomfortable, and many don’t bother. But that is exactly what we need to overcome our struggles, only when we all pull together can we topple the biggest obstacles.”

“Well said,” Enjolras nods, admiringly.

“What is to say we can’t make that happen? I mean, obviously, if a club were to pop up that focused on talking through issues of intersectionality in general, staging protests ourselves would be harder - how do you even get permission to protest _everything_? - so we likely wouldn’t do much of that, but supporting the various protests of the other clubs and giving a second opinion, perhaps, that could probably be done -  give them a way to educate themselves, if they like, maybe,” Courfeyrac shrugs, tentative. Bossuet can see the room nodding along, himself included.

 “A source of structure, if you would, something to alphabetize all the various resources available to those who want to change something,” Combeferre adds. “I like the idea of that.”

“Does it need to be structured that way? Are you a friend of alphabetical order?” Grantaire snorts, “ _Un ami de l’ABC_ perhaps?”

“One day, friend,” Joly says, clapping a hand onto Grantaire’s shoulder, “We will remember to give you an honorary spot on our championship board, for that was grand.”

Enjolras looks thoughtful for a while longer: “It’s a good name.”

There’s a beat of silence as most of the room collectively holds their breath – save for Courfeyrac, who yawns into Combeferre’s face loudly – and then Enjolras continues: “We’d need somewhere to hold meetings, we’d need a way to advertise it, and most importantly we’d need a way to reliably refer them to those in the various, more specific circles of the fight against injustice…”

That night, their little circle of friends solidifies into something more.

+

Bossuet and Joly were right about Musichetta, in that she enjoys having control in the bedroom. He wouldn’t go so far as to say she’d like to crack out a whip and tie them to the bedpost, but that’s a more likely desire than being the one tied up, definitely.

She’s not on the pill – refuses to be – so they get used to using condoms again, and really that’s completely fine.

Musichetta is beautiful when she comes. Musichetta is beautiful always. Musichetta is wonderful, and so much more than a pretty face, but that in particular strikes him again and again. Bossuet has never considered himself an artist, but the image of Joly between her legs is something he really wants to immortalize. Maybe that is how Grantaire feels, he thinks, when he says his fingers are twitching for a pencil and paper.

What’s an even better sight is the way they both look at him, after Musichetta has silently quivered apart and Joly’s face is a lot wetter than before – he’s very enthusiastic, Bossuet treasures this fact immensely. Both of them are smiling, Musichetta extends her hand to him, and he lets himself get pulled in willingly.

They take great pleasure in getting to know everything she likes. She’s not very loud at all, but that doesn’t mean they can’t tell when she likes it, because she moves, and she thrashes, and on one memorable occasion she bites down hard on Bossuet’s shoulder.

“How did we get so lucky?” Joly asks, afterwards, and everyone in the bed agrees.

+

Some asshole crashes the fourth official ABC meeting, only momentarily deterred by Enjolras’ glare. His words are reiterations of what everyone in here has heard before.

“Asexual-Aromantic awareness night? What kind of bullshit…”  

There’s a great sigh from next to Bossuet, and then Grantaire speaks up: “You’re at the wrong place. This is the ginger support group.”

“The…what?” Asshole asks, taken aback.

“I know what you may think, and it seemed ridiculous to me as well at first. Gingers? Only two percent of the world’s population has red hair! Why should anyone care about their rights? But,” – he sweeps his hand across the room – “See how many of them we have gathered here today. Sweet Jehan, Feuilly, you there, I forget your name, but that’s a reddish natural hair color, right? Sorry, insensitive question. I’m still trying to learn, please forgive me. Every kind of red hair is valid.”

He turns back to the asshole: “They’re just trying to live their lives and don’t need bigots like you coming in here to disparage them.”

“Listen, man, I’ve got nothing against gingers…”

“Then you’d do well to sit down and listen to what they have to say, before you run your mouth,” Grantaire nods towards free chairs. When Bossuet looks at Enjolras, the man is staring at Grantaire. (He does that all the time and Grantaire never notices. Sometimes Bossuet would quite like to take him by the shoulders and shake him.)

 “Apologies for taking attention away from whatever ideals you were defending,” Grantaire says, uncomfortable under such direct scrutiny when he finally gets around to misinterpreting Enjolras’ look, “I need some air.”

Enjolras follows him outside without even dismissing the meeting, determination marking his stride.

“Anyone else interested in adding money to mine and Feuilly’s pot?” Bahorel grins, shaking his baseball cap around provocatively.

+

There is no question as to whether or not Bossuet and Joly will ever meet Musichetta’s parents (and if there were the answer would be a hard no), but there does remain the issue of telling the other parents in this arrangement.

It sort of just happens to Bossuet, because he’s on Skype with his mom and Richard – currently vacationing in Morocco – when Musichetta comes through the door, trilling: “Boys, I’m home! You won’t believe what this asshole said to me just now – oh shit, I’m sorry.”

“Who’s this?” Richard asks, raising an eyebrow. Musichetta looks like she is about to run, but Bossuet beckons her closer.

“This is Musichetta. My girlfriend,” he says, as gently and jovially as possible. Still, as expected, his mother’s face falls.

“Hello, I’m sure you’re very lovely, but Archibald! You didn’t tell me you ended things with Joly! I sent him an invite to join us for scrabble night two weeks from now.”

“Things aren’t over with Joly,” Bossuet assures him, “I still love him very much. Musichetta is also his girlfriend.” He reaches backwards to clasp Musichetta’s hand, and feels her steel herself for criticism.

Richard has remained studiously quiet.

“I don’t understand,” his mother says.

“We’re in love. All three of us,” Bossuet repeats, very slowly. “You can meet her in person at scrabble night, and I’m sure you’ll love her too.”

(They do. Musichetta is a hard woman to resist.)

(As for Joly’s parents, Kieu is vaguely irritated when she shows up to the play Joly invited her and his father to, to find Musichetta coming along as well as Bossuet, at first. Claude tells her about how he once had a patient in his clinic who had two wives, both pregnant at the same time, and how he thought they all seemed very much in love. “It can work, if you put in the effort it requires.” It doesn’t take long for Musichetta to win them over as well.)

+

One night he comes home to Musichetta and Joly canoodling in the bathtub, and this time, after he goes to get the wine, he climbs right in with them.  

**Author's Note:**

> I finally made a tumblr, come say hi here
> 
> if u can't click on the link, its: annabrolena.tumblr.com
> 
> I also live for feedback, so if you wanna, go right ahead.


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